THE

$2.50

CAN A .

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

...

"'"
~

ST

(VoI.24, No.9) September, 1982

Celibrate the Autumnal Equinox - Sept. 23, 3:46AM EST'

 *.************************** *.* ***********--*--*-*---AMERICAN ATHEISTS

is a non-profit, non-political, educational organization, dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of
state and church. We accept the explanation of Thomas Jefferson that the "First Amendment" to the
Constitution of the United States was meant to create a "wall of separation" between state and church.
American Atheists are organized to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning
religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals and practices;
to collect. and disseminate information, data and literature on all religions and promote a more thorough
understanding of them, their origins and histories;
to encourage the development and public acceptance of a human ethical system, stressing the mutual
sympathy, understanding
and interdependence
of all people and the corresponding
responsibility of each
individual in relation to society;
to develop and propagate a culture in which man is the centraliigure who alone must be the source of
strength, progress and ideals for the well-being and happiness of humanity;
to promote the study of the arts and sciences and of all problems affecting the maintenance,
perpetuation and enrichment of human (and other) life;
to engage in such social, educational, legal and cultural activity as will be useful and beneficial to
members of American Atheists and to society as a whole.
Atheism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and
aims at establishing a lifestyle and ethical outlook verifiable by experience
and the scientific method,
independent of all arbitrary assumptions of authority and creeds.
Materialism declares that the cosmos is devoid of immanent conscious purpose; that it is governed by its own
inherent, immutable and impersonal laws; that there is no supernatural interference in human life; that man finding his resources within himself - can and must create his own destiny. Materialism restores to man his
dignity and his intellectual integrity. It teaches that we must prize our life on earth and strive always to improve
it. It holds that man is capable of creating a social system based on reason and justice. Materialism's "faith" is in
man and man's ability to transform the world culture by his own efforts. This is a commitment which is in very
essence life asserting. It considers the struggle for progress as a moral obligation and impossible without noble
ideas that inspire man to bold creative works. Materialism holds that humankind's potential for good and for an
outreach to more fulfilling cultural development is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.

**-_.____._*-__ __ _-_ *
AMERICAN ATHEISTS

P.O.BOX 2117

AUSTIN, TX 78768-2117

Send $40 for one year's membership. You will receive our "Insider's Newsletter" monthly,
your membership certificate and card, and a one year subscription to this magazine ..

ilIHIll llUIE

THE

(Vol. 24, No.9) September, 1982

$2.50

AMERICAN

AlliEIST

vcrae No.1 ' ' 'MOl

~hrllll(t

Iht"

\WII""",I

1'111"""

. "',';'1.2.l .1;46AM

EST

ARTICLES
It Can't Happen Here - Charles Q. Bufe
Christian Broadcasting - Ed Lowry
Kiss the Children Goodbye Life Extension and Atheism - Saul Kent
Nuclear War - Marion Batchelder
Directory of Religious Lobbies in Washington,

9
13
16
20
26
8

D.C.

FEATURED COLUMNISTS
Future of the Warfare between Science and Religion
- Fred Woodworth
Eventful Times - Ignatz Sahula Dycke
No Liberty at Liberty Baptist College - Jeff Frankel
Those Little Things - Richard Smith
The Hanging Tree - Merrill Holste
First Things First - Gerald Tholen

4
6
11
18
23
29

REGULAR FEATURES
Editorial: "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them"
- Jon Garth Murray
Atheist Masters: "Birth Control or Abortion"
- Margaret Sanger
American Atheist Radio Series: "Religion and Morality"
- Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair
News Items

2
24
27
22

POETRY
Thinking is Good for the Mind -

Editor-in-Chief
Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Managing Editor
Jon G. Murray

Poetry
Robin Murray O'Hair
Angeline Bennett
Gerald Tholen

Production Staff
Art Brenner
Bill Kight
Richard Smith
Gerald Tholen
Gloria Tholen

Non-Resident Staff
G. Stanley Brown
Jeff Frankel
Merrill Holste
Ignatz Sahula-Dycke
Fred Woodworth

Angeline Bennett

32

The American Atheist magazine is published monthly at the Gustav Broukal American Atheist Press, 2210 Hancock Dr., Austin, TX 78756, and
1982 by Society of
Separationists,
Inc., a non-profit, non-political, educational organization
dedicated to
the complete and absolute separation
of
state and church. Mailing address: P.O. Box
2117/Austin,
TX 78768-2117. A free subscription is provided as an incident of membership in the American Atheists organization. Subscriptions
are available at $25. for
one year terms only. Manuscripts submitted
must be typed, double-spaced
and accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
envelope. The editors assume no responsibility
for unsolicited manuscripts.
The American Atheist magazine
is indexed in

Monthly Periodical Index

The Wily Mallard

Once more we hear the rush of
Autumn wings
And once again there is that freshness in the air
As freedom calls to cheerful living
things
Hie time to move along - for those
who dare
Yet, fretting dolts within religion's
crew
Seem not to heed this stirring
Autumn call
Though Winter pales such clans
who never knew
The thrill of youthful aging come the fall
Their shrines can't offer venture
for the mind
For there's no freedom fettered to
an oaken pew
Where dismal prayer enslaves
their hapless kind
With thoughts of death and dying
- yet undue
Fear not the Winter that we can't
elude
But like the wily mallard - ride
Fall's wind
There leave a splendor trail so.
each new brood
Can travel freedom's road - on to
its end

Gerald Tholen

ISSN: 0332-4310

Autumnal Equinox:
September 23rd, 3:46 a.m. EST

Austin, Texas

September,

1982

Page 1

EDITORIAL

JON GARTH MURRA Y

"AND A LITTLE CHILD

SHALL LEAD THEM.
In my position as Director of the American Atheist
Center I don't often get to engage in any leisure activities of
any sort. But, now and again, I may get the opportunity to
go to the cinema. Recently I did just that when Iwent to see
the new "hit" science fiction movie E. T.. After sitting in that
theater and watching that picture for a couple of hours Iwas
so disgusted and so turned off by what I saw that it took me
hours at home to calm down. Why was I so upset? Why was
I the only nonsmiling face in the crowd exiting the theater?
The answers to those questions will necessarily leave
those of you who have not seen the movie in the dark. For
those of you who have I willbe general with my comments.
E. T. is just another typical anti-science, anti-logic, anticomputer and anti-intellectual movie that is part of a torrent
of such films flowingout of Hollywood. Essentially the plot in
E. T. is that an "ExtraTerrestrial" (from another planet)
being drops into the back yard of a suburban family and is
discovered by the middle, in age, of three children. In the
meantime scientific teams are portrayed as working in a
clandestine fashion in the area knowing that something had
"crashed to earth" near the house of the subject family.
E. T., as the boy names the extraterrestrial, soon becomes
endeared to the hearts of the children who are convinced
that no adult could understand or appreciate their find or
the value of their friendship with it. The scientific teams take
on the role of the enemy from which' the kind, loving,
emotional children have to hide this "being." They can
communicate with it through love. Science is "wicked" and
cannot love and can only reason, so science will hurt their
"being." Well, sure enough E. T. gets sick and the dirty
scientists find out whose house it is in and come with
machines, and medical equipment and computers to try to
save its life. But, they kill it with their "wicked" science and
"foul" technology. The little boy in a bed right next to his
"friend" from another world is tortured because the boy has
"communed" with E. T. to such an extent that he feels
everything that the "being" feels in a textbook display of
psychological transference.
All is not lost, however, because after they start to pack
up all their scientific instruments of "torture" the little boy
goes to look in the freezer in which they have stored his little
friend's remains, and it winks at him. Knowing that it is still
alive from "his love and his love alone", the little boy plots
the kidnapping of the body and, with the aid of his friends
from school, gets E. T. back to the woods and rendezvous
with a spaceship come to recover their stranded comrade.
The spaceship was summoned by a homemade transmitter
fashioned by the extraterrestrial out of old toys from the
little boy's room. Take that, you mean old scientist knownothings.
Page 2

"

It is hard for me to believe that such things areoportrayed

on the movie screen in the 20th century. We are in the 20th
century, aren't we? The moral of the whole story was that
human emotion and faith are somehow superior to human
intellect and problem solving ability. One is not a "whole
person" unless they can love, show compassion, render'
tenderness onto all creatures, and "a little child shall lead
them" in that path. The best way to put what is being
. presented, I think, comes from a debate that Dr. OHair,
our editor-in-chief, had with a fundamentalist minister some
years ago in the Northeast over the existence of god. At one
point in the debate the minister pulled a rock out of his
pocket and said, "Are you trying to tell me that we all came
from this kind of brute matter? Yes," he said, "brute,
unfeeling, unthinking matter." All of us Atheists in the
audience sat just as stunned as I was stunned by another in
a series of antiscience movies. What is "brute" about
matter? What is "brute" about a rock? Science does not
deal in that kind of terminology.
The theme of all things being possible through faith and
emotional outreaches of one of the faithful to others and
then to a deity is common throughout all of the world's
major religions' teachings. Very often this is why a child is
used to fulfillprophecy or to bring god's words to the village
since a child is pictured as pure emotion, innocence and
faith having not been corrupted by adult education or
insight or knowledge. The adult is to take the example of the
child and be as a child in front of the deity - unknowing,
innocent, trusting. Our films reflect this biblical teaching
over and over again. Does the "bad guy" ever win? No! If a
wife cheats on her husband in a film, who gets VD by the
end of the film?She does, because that is the "wage of sin."
The tall strong blond blue-eyed hero comes into town and
cleans up the crime (or "sin") and rides off into the sunset
content to kiss his horse instead of a woman. It is simply a
reenactment of christ coming to save the jews, "god's
chosen people," with his goodness.
Our children are sent to see these things over and over
again. They appear on TV over and over again, and no one
catches on to what they are actually watching because it
becomes so commonplace. The conditioning is almost
subliminal at times. Or at least it was in the past. Not so
anymore. Now, Hollywood is coming right out in the open
with bold attacks on science, medicine, education, and
technology. Poltergeist is another good example of such a
film. It is a ghost story where science is thwarted again and
the ghost has to be subdued by a psychic (or should I say
psycho) - and not even an ordinary psychic hut a dwarf
psychic. The suburban family in this movie even has a
twenty foot tall uterus appear on t~e wall in the kid's room

September, 1982

The American Atheist

and attempts to suck them all down to "hell." The worst

part is that audiences just don't use such things anymore as
diversions only. A goodly number of the persons actually
believe in the ghosts, or spirits or souls.
"What harm can come of this, anyway?" I hear you say.
"This guy will be seeing bible quotations on toilet paper
next." you think. Well, let me give you an example of what
such conditioning can do. Dr. O'Hair and I were in a local
restaurant for dinner just the other day. We were both
recognized by a man with two young girls in his care at the
next table. We are often recognized in public as "those
Atheists", since we have weekly American Atheist Forum
television programs aired on cable channels here in Austin,
Texas. Everything was alright until we finished eating and
got up to leave. We were only about six feet away from the
table when this man jumped out of his seat, causing his chair
to fly and land on the floor upside down behind him, and
came running after us with glassy eyes. He shouted, "No
matter what you have done, god can forgive you. Repent
now, and you willbe healed." My initial reaction was "Dogs
heel. People don't." I don't know why I thought of that. We
got rapidly out of the way (knowing that the man was
unstable and dangerous) which is what we always do - not
saying a word in retort. Everyone in the restaurant just
turned around and was shocked at the spectacle. The point
is that when a man grows up with the likes of dwarfs
defeating ghosts, then why can't he confront "evil on the
hoof" in the form of an Atheist?
Many christians really believe that they can use their
righteousness or their faith as an offensive tactical weapon
against what they perceive as evil. They think that they can
stand behind the shield of righteousness while they hurl
their faith at you. This can be very dangerous and lead to
rash and unpredictable behavior. Every film has some
aspect of good vs. evil, and good is always the victor. We all
know that in real life evil is the victor far more often. Many
more crimes go unpunished than criminals caught.
If we are conditioned to believe that through faith and
emotion we can fight all the bad things we run into in life,we
are being given a false sense of security that can in reality
lead to more trouble in the long run. When a man with a gun
asks you for your wallet, give it to him; don't try to shield
yourself with your faith while he puts a bullet in your brain.
The conditioning is spreading even into the US national and
international policy. With faith on our side we feel that we
can be the victors of a nuclear exchange with the dirty
Russian Atheists. I have news for a person with that kind of
view. No one ever wins a nuclear exchange. Everyone dies.
Ifthe conditioning can proceed, however, long enough over
a wide range of generations, willwe finallycome to the point
when we willpull that nuclear trigger because we really feel
that our faith is the winning trump card?
Built into our culture is a continued reinforcement of
religious values and concepts from which one cannot
escape even with a leisurely pursuit like going to a movie.
Once you become turned on to the different kinds of
reinforcements and subliminal conditionings and can recognize them, you sometimes feel as ifyou are the one who is a
little off base and not those who go along in herd manner
never realizing what they are being taught and why. I can sit
down and turn on the TV and no matter what channel or
what program that is in the story-entertainment category

Austin, Texas

(excluding documentaries, hard news, educational programs, etc.) I choose, I can find savior themes, good doing
battle against evil, anti-science, pro-war, pro-violence, antilife, anti-intellectual themes running through all of them.
The point of all of this is that what used ro be a simple
afternoon escape from the problems of the day for a few
hours is not so anymore. We are surrounded and engulfed
by religiosity every where we turn. As Atheists we must
learn to recognize it, teach our children to see through it,
and attempt to do what we can to make others recognize it
as well. Our entertainment needs to be just as much in
touch with reality as .our daily lives. In reality there is
pleasure as well as work or pain, and we must force
ourselves to recognize it and take advantage of it without
being sucked into the mold of the mass who prefer to go
outside of reality for their pleasure. I can get just as much
enjoyment out of a film depicting what really goes on in the
lifeof a family with emphasis on their good times in a natural
state as others think they can from a contrived battle of
good against evil. Reality provides such a wide range of
intellectual stimulation and personal emotional moods to
experience and share that 'we may never find the end of
possible combinations. As an Atheist, I don't need any more
than that.

/fEd,) 10

hl l"C,IJtd

/11 lAJiJltoIfJ... 4II<i

September, 1982

5tcwlf'1

~o~

St"~

t:1~iL

Mt.

blJo\NJ.
Page 3

Fred Woodworth

FUTURE OF THE WARFARE

BETWEEN
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
STEALING THE CREDIT
In a New Mexico hospital, a patient lies critically ill.
Although responding well to treatment, he is withdrawn and
apparently resigned to die. He is an Indian. Suddenly the
door to his room opens and several of his fellow-tribesmen
enter, accompanied by a familiar figure who is actually one
of the most important individuals of all among these native
Americans - their ceremonialist. Whether known as a
shaman, curandero or, as we might say, witch-doctor, he is
present to conduct ancient rites at the side of the ailing
Indian's hospital bed. These rituals invoke the sky, the
earth, the wind, the spirits thought by the Indian to reside in
everything; and the shaman chants a formula to banish
sickness with the power of all these natural elements.
Ultimately the sick man gets well and returns to active life
convinced of the signal role played by his religion in
restoring him to health. From the point of view of the
medical staff at the hospital, no harm whatsoever has been
done and perhaps the comforting influence of the ceremohies has even helped patients such as this man to have a
peaceful and confident mental attitude somewhat more
conducive to the healing process. Indeed, this is no
hypothetical case, and a program of encouraging native
religious ceremonies for hospitalized Indian patients has
been in operation for several years in various parts of the
Southwest.
What is crucial here is not so much the attitude of the
patients toward their traditional religions - an attitude that,
given their cultural training, is certainly natural. Nor is it
really the willingness of shamans to take credit for the cures
brought about by modern processes of medicine. The
perplexing heart of the matter is the ready tendency of
medical specialists to allow completely non-efficacious
"treatments" to be accorded the goodwill and admiration
that properly ought to go to science itself.

a truth that completely overthrew the bible's naively

superstitious accounts of the origins of life and humankind.
What has been called a history of warfare between science
and religion, then, was actually better described as an
utterly irreconcilable contradiction at almost all times
between reality and religious faith - a contradiction that
was sometimes perceived down the centuries by a few
enlightened thinkers who were in the position of being not a
warring army but a class of slaves or prisoners kept in
chains by religion.
With the outburst of dismay from the lips of the religious,
and the cries of relief and delight from the free of mind, the
post-Darwin shouts of consternation and triumph inaugurated the real war between science and religion that quickly
escalated from a mere slave revolt to a bitter and longoverdue hostility. The claims of the bible began to be looked
at the same way as were natural phenomena: they were
susceptible of being talked about, and conclusions could be
drawn from them that excluded other possibilities. Immediately the self-contradictions and absurdities contained in
religion's book became apparent to a wide scattering of
people who were just as willingto ponder and test what the
bible had to say as they were to test a hypothesis. If
someone found that a current flowing in a wire induced a
magnetic field, it was unnecessary for anybody else to take
his word for it; experiments could be repeated, and
replicability became a criterion for truth of conclusions.
Once this kind of reasoning process got into use, the flimsy
fables of the churches were picked apart, and ifone section
of the bible said one thing while its exact opposite was
claimed to be true in another part, no longer would people
have to split, modify, or erase their critical judgments.
Science had established by performance of experiments in
the real world the fact that nothing contradicted anything
else, and the bible, therefore, abounding with contradictions of not only itself but of reality, was filled with
undefendable falsehood.

"... Many scientific persons, no longer interested in fighting what seemed to them as
moribund religion, turned exclusively to their pursuits of theorizing and research,
and before long religion had made a comeback of such magnitude that people for the
most part began to forget there had ever been any disputation at all."
For many centuries there existed an uneasy truce
between science and religion, a truce that was often broken
by religion whenever it decided that some truth discovered
by science was too dangerous to be known. Science, for its
part, mostly kept an outward pious attitude that tried to
threaten as little as possible the myriads of dogmas imposed
by the churches, but a smouldering resentment among the
pioneers of astronomy, biology, and physics took flame
around the time of Darwin's publication as science grasped
Page 4

September, 1982

For many years this mutual attack by science and religion

continued until it became evident to everyone that science
had won. Unfortunately, science had won the war but lost
the peace, and religion, recuperating from the blows it had
been dealt, began its comeback by asserting the compatibility of the mystic with the materialistic. Many scientific
persons, no longer interested in fighting what seemed to
them as moribund religion, turned exclusively to their
pursuits of theorizing and research, and before long religion
The American Atheist

had made a comeback of such magnitude that people for

the most part began to forget there had ever been any
disputation at all.
In our latter part of the 20th century, both science and
religion exist, and both command vast reserves of respect.
But interestingly
enough, what commands
almost NO
support at all is the recent notion that science and religion
are or should be hostile to each other. Thus, religion has
appropriated to itself all possible artifacts of science; it owns
and uses immensely sophisticated
electronic equipment
that broadcasts
its message to the whole world - a
message that is utterly at variance with scientific method.
Religion even bounces its exhortations
and music off
satellites placed into orbits that religion originally objected
to, saying that these were in fact "god's domain". And when
religion's adherents fall illor are injured, they expect and get
care that was evolved only over their own protest.
Whether science deliberately disdained to learn any
lessons at all from religion, or whether it didn't realize that
such abject credos had anything to offer, the fact is that
religion appropriated all the results of science, while science
didn't even profit from the single thing of value that religion
possessed,
which was what we would now call Public
Relations. Excessively modest, science is unconcerned
whenever unscientific philosophies take over its results. At
the same time. over the last thirty or forty years, science has
begun to leave the realm of simple invention and has now
reached out into areas that are beyond human scale microcircuits that are too tiny for ordinary human beings to
trace or fully understand, or majestic leaps into space that
involve infinite complexity and machines too large or far
away for ordinary people to even see. Science has also
come to be oriented to an extent unprecedented
over the
last few centuries, toward mathematics and abstractions.
And so, moving in behind, religion accepts all those things
that science has left to mankind, and while the science of the
present progresses on into a maze of equations that are
beyond the grasp of the citizenry, and produces gadgets
that a decreasing percentage of technical-minded
laymen
can comprehend,
religion is left in control of all that went
before.
It seems to be of no concern to the practitioners
of
scientific method that programs are now being written so
that computers can generate astrological reports; nor that
witch-doctors visit hospitals and cause patients to believe
that they were healed by some other process than that
which actually healed them. Science no longer fights, so it
no longer cares whether what it has made is now used to
keep alive those who hate it, or whether it has launched into
the world a way of communicating with all mankind - and
that the means is used by its deadliest enemy. The
"warfare" of the past seems to many persons only an
amusing, vague knowledge of, perhaps, the Scopes Trial,
and the certainty that events of that kind were aberrations
in history.

DOUBLETHINK
Emerson claimed that consistency was the hobglobin of
small minds, an aphorism that has been quoted with delight
ever since by those who really do have small minds and who
cannot possibly be consistent. As reality itself is consistent
Austin, Texas

- as parts always add up to the whole and nothing is left

over; as no two statements can be inconsistent with each
other and both be true - consistency is actually, or should
be, not a hobglobin but a vital necessity of great minds.
Orwell, in what has almost become a cliche, coined the term
"doublethink"
to refer to the process of holding two
irreconcilable beliefs at the same time. It appears to be
surprisingly easy for most human beings to perform this
mental gyration, and we see it all the time, particularly in the
realm of politics or religion. Paul Blanshard, for instance,
informs us in his work American Freedom and Catholic
Power that:
"The jesuits have even evolved an 'explanation' for the
condemnation
of Galileo, which reconciles
the
church's blunder with the doctrine of the infallibility of
the pope. Galileo, it seems, was condemned
by a
'commission',
not by the pope himself. The pope,
when he ratified the sentence that condemned
the
scientist, was not acting in his official capacity as
pastor of the human race. In any case, Galileo was
condemned not for teaching the truth but for being
too abrupt about it. He persisted in teaching as a
FACT something that should have been taught only
as a THEORY. Ergo, 'it will be found that the Galileo
case furnishes splendid evidence of the church's truly
scientific attitude and procedure.' " (p. 212)
Elsewhere, Blanshard relates how a catholic advertisement
for a religious talisman that is supposed to have all sorts of
qualities, states that the charm will definitely protect against
harm, citing a wearer who was fired on by machine guns,
etc., and escaped unharmed. But then at the end of the text
of the advertisement
appears a statement in exact contradiction to all that has preceded it: "A scapular is not a
talisman. It is not a rabbit's foot ... " Blanshard remarks that
this " ... illustrates quite admirably the technique ... The
carmelite fathers are permitted to collect money by exploiting a scapular in the most explicit language as a divinely
guaranteed rabbit's foot. Then, in a few relatively inconspicuous lines in the text ... , the hierarchy disowns the idea."
Thus the true believer holds precariously
to completely
opposing claims at the same time.
Using this method against science, religion offers writings
and flat statements about the age of the earth, the origin of
human beings, about geology and astronomy,
as well as
ethics. These are totally at variance with what science has
discovered, but then religion claims: there is no conflict at all
between science and religion. Sadly enough to say, at such
times scientific spokesmen (with a few notable exceptions)
usually do not dispute claims of this sort, probably out of a
misguided desire not to "offend" anyone - a restraint
which does not affect religious spokesmen in the least.

CONCLUSION
Having progressed
far into mathematical
abstractions
and definitely away from the phase of simple gadgetry that
occupied it for so long, science has more or less abandoned
its own defense. Increasing specialization and complexity
have isolated practitioners
of science not only from each
other at times, but very definitely from such other branches
of human knowledge as history, rhetoric, and the humanities in general. The lack of generalists prevents the wide
view of science by itself that would allow a realization of the

September, 1982

Page 5

danger posed by religion. Meanwhile, religious institutions

are rewriting history to make it seem as if they were in fact
responsible for, rather than having been the hindrances to,
scientific development. This dishonest posture allows them
to gain credibility and latitude to impose their views again on
humanity, thus reaping the rewards of financial and political
power over masses of people.

will no doubt grow unimpeded by scientific objection.

Specifics of the world of 600 or a thousand years hence are
naturally beyond our knowledge, but the general shape of
civilization then, as seen from this distance, is one of religiopolitical dictatorship "for the good of the public". A
vanishingly small number of aware technicians willperform
whatever tasks are necessary to keep an otherwise self- .

"Withscience now in the role of the pious serf again blandly proclaiming no quarrel
with religion, forces that want to make life over again into the image ordained in 'holy'
books stand a much finer chance of doing so."
With science now in the role of the pious serf again
blandly proclaiming no quarrel with religion, forces that
want to make life over again into the image ordained in
"holy" books stand a much finer chance of doing so.
Double-think has been made a way of life, and as we come
to live in a world of artifacts and "black-box" technology
that fewer and fewer people understand, as centuries pass,
the irresistible imputation of magic or superstitious power

sustaining world technology at its tasks. The State and the

Church, having breathed a whisper of sacredness and
magicality into the machines of civilization, will govern all
the more securely for the awe and reverence of the
common people beholding the legacy of science. Most likely
there will be no future warfare of science and religion, but
only a domination of the former by the latter.

Ignatz Sahula-Dycke

EVENTFUL TIMES
What is time? Only the result of an arbitrary metering of
continuity. And 4 1/2 billions of years - the scientists'
estimate of our planet's age? It leaves the age of the universe
and of the cosmos in the realm of guesses and tenuous
dreams. Guessing about our earth's age is fascinating for
numerous reasons; but to me mainly because it so radically
disagrees with the biblical tale of creation, and prevents me,
as it does any reasoning person, from taking that biblical
version of it seriously. It long ago also brought doubts into
my mind about the existence of any gods, like the one whom
believers call all-knowing, omnipotent, mysterious, immutable, and so on all the way to ineffable (though all of his
believers ceaselessly describe him to us).

ridiculous. Even tots of three, four, or five indicate their

preference for facts, instead of the biblical fables they've
already been fed, when they ask grown ups to tell them
where they as babies came from. The discrepancy between
the biblical and the realistic concept of existence thus,
under conditions of modern life, is well-nigh ineradicable,
grows more and more evident, and gains a new adherent for
evolutionism each and every time anyone devotes to the
two opposing versions a bit of cogent thought.
The insuppressible fact that more than any other during
the past two or three centuries hatched disbelief in the bible
emerged from the evangelical statement that god, after his
six days of creative labor, called the result of those labors

"The insuppressible fact that more than any other during the past two or three
centuries hatched disbelief in the bible emerged from the evangelical statement that
god, after his six days of creative labor, called the results of those labors good. It's
consequently hard to forget that this omniscient, omnipotent and perfect god
suddenly realized - four thousand years after he finished his work - that the
product he created needed redeeming, and for that purpose committed his son jesus
to die on the cross. Good old dad!"
One way or another, to anyone who reasons about the
glaring difference between the biblical version of creation
(6000 years ago) and the scientifically estimated one
(4,500,000,000 years ago), any god turns out to be only an
idea conceived by minds that failed to pursue the godconcept's appearance to a logical source. That "god" is a
concept which in sundry cases comforts many people is
beyond argument. But when such believing folk are seized
by the virus of evangelism and insist that everyone should
worship this concept, the situation turns out bizarre if not
Page 6

September, 1982

good. It's consequently hard to forget that this omniscient,

omnipotent and perfect god suddenly realized - four
thousand years after he finished his work - that the
product he created needed redeeming, and for that purpose
committed his son jesus to die on the cross. Good old dad!
When reviewing everything that "the redeemed" have
done during the following centuries, father's sacrifice of his
son turned out to be an utter failure: the people whom the
god created and thought he was thus redeeming are - as
testify the two world wars - more decadent now than ever
The American Atheist

before. And, sad to say, largely so due to the "holy

precepts"
of christianism
as well as other religions of
previous and later vintage. Matters such as this are widely
known, and being mentioned here only to show how poorly
equipped ideationally we humans are, and how slowly we
advance. Any words claiming that religion facilitates progress should be followed by asking: Progress toward what?
Although many hundreds of our philosophically adept
predecessors
have since the passing of the Dark Ages
labored for the clarification of our outlook, just think were
we'd presently find ourselves but for their vigilance and
concern. Yet, unfortunately due to the explosive increase in
the world's population during this century, we of the human
breed are percentagewise
more uninformed, misinformed,
and ignorant than before. Currently even those whom we
Americans elected to positions of leadership are only
befuddling us - their actions arising from the belief that a
return to the dogmatic doctrine of a virtually defunct
christianism will once again provide the kind of mutual
satisfaction and goodwill we enjoyed at the outset of this
century.
Prophetically, forty years ago there appeared "a common
faith" following a series of lectures by John Dewey wherein
he dealt in part with our growing American distrust of
institutionalized
religion and our largely inextinguishable
desire to set the entire world aright - a desire rooted in the
religion we now incline to take lightly - even though we
more often than not fail to apply, here at home, that what we
recommend to others as a cure. Dewey intimated that our
newly-manifesting American outlook presaged the advent
of a new and common faith bound to transform erstwhile
religion into an impotent fable, and the new common faith
into its superseder. Today, at least to the extent to which
every American has been informed of the triumphs of
NASA, even the stubborn group of our biblical fundamentalists is seen hedging here and giving in there to the
inevitable: to the necessity of regrouping according to the
rules fatefully imposed upon all of us by change. It's the only
way any people may regain their former composure.
Except for the glaring inability of today's nations to realize
the folly of trusting a stockpile of nuclear weapons as the
guarantee of peace, it's still reasonably valid to believe that
we of humankind are duty-bound
to go forw~rd - no
matter from which direction our moistened finger tells us
trouble is coming from. Were our educational methods
designed for the purpose of satisfying our instinctive
desires: for helping us attain the happiness we all seek,
instead of the riches we've been told are the way to it, we'd
all be a great deal better off than we presently are. We're
presently in a predicament wherein we are (due to faulty
education) the victims of faction instead of beneficiaries of
satisfaction. Sooner or later this will be hailed as a great
discovery by those who - had they noticed the obvious would have employed it as their guide to contentment long
ago.
Westerners see existence in this beautiful world of ours
as discouragingly futile because their christianity has made
them myopic. Christianism has for many centuries been
offering them, at an extortionist's
price, a ticket of admission to a heavenly paradise instead of showing them the
paradise that every human creature can find and enjoy only
within itself. Happiness, true happiness, is realizable only
through devoted attention to one's work. Devotion to work
Austin, Texas

implies patient and persistent exertion. Whenever this pair

demands both physical and mental faculties, it is ideal:
Opportunities
for true happiness exist in greater volume
here in our USA than in any nation of the globe. Not only are
these opportunities
voluminous but also diverse - with
everyone of them protected by our Constitution and Bill of
Rights from authoritarian
misuse. Our elected leaders:
executive and legislative, judicial and military, hold center
stage for a while and, whether competent
or not soon
disappear; they come and go - yet, during their serving
years, mindful of the Declaration of Independence
and the
Constitution, loyalists bent on assuring American freedom
and liberty. Now, with most everything caught in the
prevailing economic, inflationary, and ideational whirligig,
it's critically meet and necessary that every freethinker
continue trusting. Not in some maverick god but in the
effectiveness of that dual document's power - power now
endangered. When the Constitution is in danger, you and I
are threatened with enslavement, both physical and mental.
With support of the citizenry I look for the defeat of the
devious attempts to denature the Constitution which have
already been initiated within Congress.
Who now sides with our American outlook against wily
congressional
renegades? I wonder. Where now are the
Senate and House stalwarts who in extremities like this one
defended free-willed Constitutionalism?
Were the pronouncements
of our Supreme Court to be
iron-bound first of all to please electronic evangelists and
other crusading biblists, there'd remain only the wreckage
of our Founders' heritage. And divisiveness.

September, 1982

---~
Page 7

EVER WONDER
........
in government.

why we've got a national problem of religion

Here are listed all of the religious lobbies in Washington, D.C. Count them and
remember that even though a couple of them appear to be more progressive than
the others everyone is aforce againstfullfreedom and sanity in this country and

the world.
All addresses and telephone numbers are for Washington
(area code 202) unless otherwise indicated.
American Baptist Churches. IIO-Maryland
Ave. N.E.
544-3400.
American Ethical Union. 5025 Garfield St. N. W. 3636244.
American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 444 North
Capitol St. 638-256.
American Jewish Committee. 818 18th St. N.W. 2988787.
American Jewish Congress. 1522 K St. N.W. 638-3999.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
8120 Fenton St., Silver Spring, MD (301) 589-3707.
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. 200 Maryland
Ave. N.E. 544-4226.
B'nai B'rith Office of Public Affairs. 1640 Rhode Island
Ave. N.W. 857-6545.
Catholics for a Free Choice. 1411 K. St. N. W. 638-1704.
Catholics for Christian Political Action. National Press
Building. 347-0095.
Christian Action Council. National Press Building. 6385441.
Christian Church, Disciples of Christ. 222 S. Downey
Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46206. (317) 353-1491.
Christian Embassy. 2009 14th St. Arlington, VA (703)
525-1770.
Christian Science Committee on Publication. 910 16th St.
N. W. 833-3848.
Christian Voice. 418 CSt. N.E. 544-5202.
Church of the Brethren Washington Office. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 546-3203.
Church Women United. 7720 Alaska Ave. N.W. 2913653.
Citizens for Educational
Freedom.
854 Washington
Building. 638-6423.
Friends Committee on National Legislation. 245 2d Ave.
N.E. 547-6000.
IMPACT. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 544-8636.
Jesuit Social Ministry Office. 1717 Massachusetts Ave.
N.W.462-7008.
Library Court. 4 Library Court S.E.
Lutheran Council in the U.S.A., Office of Governmental
Affairs. 475 L'Enfant Plaza West S. W. 484-3950.
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. 1325 Otis St. N.E.
526-4560.
Mennonite Central Committee. 100 Maryland Ave. N.E.
544-6564.
Moral Majority. 499 S. Capitol St. S.E. 484-7511.

Page 8

September, 1982

National Association of Evangelicals, Office of Public

Affairs. 1430 K St. N.W. 628-7911.
,
National Christian Action Coalition. 418 C St. N.E.
544-3541.
National Committee for Human Life Amendment Inc.
1707 L St. N.W. 785-8061.
National Conference of Christians and Jews. Southern
Building. 737-5353.
National Council of Churches. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E.
544-2350.
National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious
Objectors. 15th St. and New York Ave. N.W. 393-4868.
Network. 806 Rhode Island Ave. N.E. 526-4070.
Reformed Church in America. 1707 Columbia Rd. 2652580.
Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights. 100 Maryland
Ave. N.E. 543-7032.
Religious Roundtable, 1500 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA
(703) 527-3795.
Seventh-day Adventist Church, Office of Public Affairs.
6840 Eastern Ave. N. W. 722-6680.
Synagogue Council of America. 1640 Rhode Island Ave.
N.W:872-1337.
Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
1640 Rhode
Island Ave. N. W. 232-4342.
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations
of America.
600 New Hampshire Ave. N.W. 965-4308.
Unitarian Universalist Association Office for Social Concern. 100 Maryland Ave. N.E. 547-0254.
United Church of Christ Office For Church in Society.
110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 543-1517.
United Methodist Board of Church and Society. 100
Maryland Ave. N.E. 488-5600.
United Methodist Church Woman's Division. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 488-5661.
United Presbyterian Washington Office. 110 Maryland
Ave. N.E. 543-1126.
United States Catholic Conference. Office of Government Liaison. 1312 Massachusetts Ave. N. W. 659-6606.
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 543-2260.
Washington Interreligious Staff Council, (Meets in the
Methodist Building).
Washington Office of the Episcopal Church. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E. 547-9306.
Washington Office in Africa. 110 Maryland Ave. N.E.
546-7961.
Washington Office on Latin America. 110 Maryland Ave.
N.E.544-8045.

The American Atheist

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE?

by Charles Q. Bufe
"It can't happen here
.
It can't happen here
.
I'm telling you my dear
.
That it can't happen here ..
Because I've been checkin' it out
baby ...
I checked it out a couple of times
.
Oh darling, it's important that you believe me; bop bop bop
bop ...
That it can't happen here.
Who could imagine ... "
- Frank Zappa (from Help I'm a Rock)
"Society highly values its normal man ... Normal men have
killed perhaps 100,000,000 of their fellow men in the last fifty
years."
- R.D. Laing

Three years ago over 900 Americans died in a mass

murder/suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. They died obeying
the orders of the religious settlement's leader, the reverend
Jim Jones.
Following the incident, our nation's press put on a
remarkable display of ineptitude in its attempts to come to
grips with the causes of the event at Jonestown. Many
commentators simply chose to avoid meaningful discussion
by defining the cause as "madness," which was a disingenuous way of saying that they had no idea as to why the
Jonestown tragedy occurred. A good example of the
"madness" theory was provided by the Wall Street Journal
which placed blame for the incident on the "fathomless
human beast."
Others, primarily intellectual lap dogs of the powers-thatbe, placed the responsibility on Jim Jones' "leftist" rhetoric
and ideology. (For a particularly loathsome example of such
"analysis," see Midge Decter's piece in the September 1979
issue of Commentary.) That approach misses the point in
that rhetoric hardly seems capable of driving anyone to
suicide or murder - I don't think that even Paul Harvey
could do it. And as yet, no convincing case has been made
linking advocacy of common ownership of the means of
production with mass murder/suicide.

Americans.
The members of the people's temple (the Jonestown
settlers) were work-oriented: able-bodied adults spent 12 to
14 hours a day in the fields, and even elderly people worked
producing handicrafts. They were members of a religious
organization - Jones wasa clergyman in good standing of
the disciples of christ at the time of the tragedy. They were
severely sexually repressed (monogamy was expected), as
could have been expected in a religious colony; the one
exception was Jim Jones who was a rapacious sexual
monster. And they were members of a hierarchical organization.
So why would anyone join Jim Jones' people's temple?
Why would anyone commit suicide or murder simply
because s/he was ordered to do so? The reasons why most
of the members of the people's temple joined seem fairly
obvious. A large percentage of them were black, and the
people's temple was genuinely nonracist, a rare trait in an
American organization. That feature was undoubtedly also
attractive to idealistic whites. Further, the egalitarianism of
the people's temple, distorted as it was (some animals Jones and his clique - being more equal than others), had a
great deal of appeal for the largely economically marginal
people's temple recruits. Finally, gullibility and trickery
played a part; Jones lured a sizable number of members
through such sideshow devices as faith healing and psychic
surgery.
The reasons for participation in the mass suicide/murder
have, as yet, not been adequately explained. Some blame
must be placed on Jones' use of his private police force and
his use of brainwashing techniques (sleep deprivation,
exhaustive work, indoctrination sessions). But that is not a
total explanation. This question must be addressed: Why
did so pitiably few of the residents of Jonestown make any
attempt to resist Jones?
The answer is that they, like virtually all Americans, had
been conditioned from birth to follow leaders, distrust their
own judgment, and unquestioningly obey authority figures.
One key element in the conditioning process is christianity.
Several aspects of the christian religion serve to produce

"Why did so pitiably few of the residents of Jonestown make any attempt to resist
Jones? The answer is that they, like virtually all Americans, had been conditioned
from birth to follow leaders, distrust their own judgment, and unquestioningly obey
authority figures. One key element in the conditioning process is christianity.
Several aspects of the christian religion serve to produce submissiveness
and
authoritarian attitudes in those unfortunate enough to be under its influence.
Perhaps the most important is the christian concept of humankind's inherent
~ness
e~s'lls
."
_
'",inf
1
,rtany ' ugwor~~m
hiness'
Still others blamed "permissiveness" and the "breakdown" of the family and traditional values. Even Ellen
Goodman, from whom one would have expected better,
argued along those lines. Such arguments are, of course,
nonsensical; the Jonestown settlers were, in many important ways, much more traditional than the majority of
Austin, Texas

submissiveness and authoritarian attitudes in those unfortunate enough to be under its influence. Perhaps the most
important is the christian concept of humankind's inherent
"sinfulness" and "unworthiness." This places those who
buy it in a psychologically subservient position to their
perceived-perfect "god," upon which they believe they are

September,

1982

Page 9

dependent
for "salvation."
Thus, at the very core of
christianity is an authoritarian
relationship,
that of the
"unworthy sinner" to his/her "god."
Sexual repression lies at the center of the concept of
"sinfulness" and "unworthiness."
(If you doubt this, consider that christian "leaders" have throughout the ages been
quite willing to approve of mass murder, in the form of war,
and slavery; but you could search for the rest of your life
before you would find a clergyman who would approve of
free sexual relations between consenting
adults.) The
repression of sexuality is a powerful stimulant to submissiveness and other-directedness.
If one's basic instincts are
"sinful," one looks outward to "god" and its earthly
representatives
for" goodness" and for" guidance." Anyone
who believes in her/his "sinfulness" and "unworthiness"
is
not liable to place much faith in her/himself.
Lifestyles dictated by christianity also reinforce submissiveness/authoritarianism.
The celibate lifestyle is the most
obvious example. An individual living in such a manner will
inevitably feel that s/he is (to quote Philip Roth), "torn
between desires that are repugnant to my conscience and a
conscience
repugnant
to my desires." Such a person,
constantly bedeviled by "impure" thoughts, will feel "sinful";
the thoughts themselves are evidence of his/her "sinful"
nature. Interestingly,
severely repressed
individuals are
often the most zealous proponents
of christianity. Living
repressed,
unhappy existences,
unable or unwilling to
break their psychological
fetters, such people need a
damned good reason to justify their misery. Christianity
provides it.
That paradigm of christian life, the family, is an equally
repressive institution. Many, probably most, people feel the
need for sexual variety. Christian-dictated
monogamy
denies that need, again producing individuals "torn between
desires repugnant
to (their) conscience(s)
and conscience(s) repugnant to (their) desires." Further, religiously
conditioned, sexually repressed parents are the primary
means by which sexual repression is transmitted to children.
.
Another criticism of the family is that its basis breadwinner/wife
- is authoritarian
in nature and conditions children to accept dominant/submissive
relationships
as the norm. Recent improvements in the status of women
have not fundamentally altered the authoritarian nature of
the family. With a fairly large percentage of women remaining as housewives, and with wages for women averaging
59% of those of males, women remain economically dependent on men.
The educational system is also an important agent in the
authoritarian conditioning process. Obedience is the sine'
qua non of American education.
Children are tightly
controlled; they're often placed in assigned seats, their
movements from place to place are controlled by bells or
buzzers, and they even need permission to take care of
basic biological needs.
Additionally, in both public and parochial schools, students are constantly bombarded with patriotic and religious
rituals and propaganda
(for example, recitation of the
Pledge of Allegiance and exposure to right-wing, christianoriented groups like Up With People). Students are encouraged to participate in rigidly hierarchical groups like ROTC
and sports teams (football, for example) which stress blind

Page 10

September, 1982

obedience as a virtue. Also, and very importantly, they are

fed a carefully sanitized version of history which either
ignores or glosses over such embarrassing
- to the
government
and organized religion - matters as the
murder of tens of thousands
of "witches" in medieval
Europe, the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the Mountain Meadows massacre, the Scopes trial, massive violations of individual rights by the government
during the
post-World War I red scare, the McCarthy period, and the
Vietnam war, and outright murder by the government (the
Haymarket Anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti - all framed
and executed - and Black Panthers Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark, murdered by Chicago police during a 1969 raid
planned with the help of the FBI). Students rarely encounter
material on such thought-provoking
subjects.
In fact, a good case can be made that a primary purpose
of the school system is to discourage rationality and critical
thinking. A statement by an administrator at the high school
in which I was imprisoned (East High, Phoenix, AZ) nicely
illustrates the point. The porker had busted my younger
brother for distributing "subversive"
literature; when my
brother protested that he was merely exercising his First
Amendment rights and was trying to get people to think, the
administrative
goon's reply was to the point: "We're not
here to get people to think."
To further reduce the chances that the school system
might occasionally turn out a rational, thinking individual,
fundamentalists
are now assaulting the sciences, the one
area commonly studied which demands a rational approach
and critical thinking. If these zealots prevail, students will
soon be confronted with superstition (creationism)
being
presented as an acceptable alternative to a well- established,
extremely well-supported scientific theory (evolution). The
effect of such a presentation upon students' perceptions of
science and rationality can easily be imagined.
Rounding out the list of important agents in the authoritarian conditioning process is the media. Members of the
National Religious Broadcasters'
Association
own over
1,400 radio stations, 36 television stations, and four cable
systems. The fare on religious stations typically consists of
appeals for money ("He needs your help!" - Why j.c.
doesn't materialize the needed cash is never explained.
Perhaps He's worried about the effect of celestial counterfeiting on the inflation rate.), rantings and ravings against
science, presentation
of insane, superstitious
dogma as
fact, exhortations to social intolerance, and exhortations to
blindly support the government (in evangelical terminology,
"patriotism").
To make matters worse, the FCC requires all radio and
TV stations to set aside a certain amount of time for
religious programming.
That's a blatant contravention
of
the principle of separation
of church and state but, of
course, religion is useful to the government
in helping to
produce mindless, obedient sheep.
Not surprisingly, the content of the media reflects the
values and preconceptions
of those who own it: religious
groups, rich individuals, and corporations.
Authoritarian
relationships and hierarchical organization are presented as
the norm and (importantly) as being inescapable. Alternative iifestyles are very rarely portrayed, and then generally
in an unsympathetic manner. Stereotypes and stereotypically portrayed social relationships (especially family relation-

The American Atheist

ships) abound. And the news focuses on the activities of

"leaders." Significantly, when a grass-roots social movement demands attention, the media immediately seeks to
focus attention on its "leaders." The coverage of the
situation in Poland provides a good example. From that
coverage one could almost have concluded that Lech
Walesa brought down the Gierek government
singlehandedly. The equalitarian, antiauthoritarian
aspects of the
Polish labor movement have been almost totally ignored by
the media.

The authoritarian
conditioning process I've described
produces in a very large number of people, probably a
sizable majority of our fellow citizens, a feeling which could
be expressed in this way: "What the hell? Ya can't fight city
hall. What's the use? Why bother?"
Why bother? The answer is that being submissive is not
good for your self-esteem; and your happiness is dependent
to a very high degree upon your self-esteem. Being selfdirected and independent are necessary to your happiness.
And in. our society being self-directed and independent

"The authoritarian conditioning process I've described produces in a very large

number of people ... a feeling which could be expressed in this way: 'What the hell?
Ya can't fight city hall. What's the use? Why bother?' Why bother? The answer is that
being submissive is not good for your self esteem; and your happiness is dependent to
a very high degree upon your self-esteem."
Finally, even deprived of content, some components of
the media promote passivity. Television is the most obvious
example; by its nature it promotes inactivity. TV watchers
are reduced to the role of passive consumer. While that
activity - inactivity, to be more exact - obviously
consumes time which could be spent in other pursuits, it
very probably acclimates heavy viewers to inactivity, to
passivity.

necessarily involves resisting the efforts of religious and

governmental authoritarians to control our thinking and to
curtail what few freedoms we have. Unfortunately,
it's
questionable whether most people will ever come to that
realization.
It can't happen here? It already has.
Welcome to Jonestown.

Jeff Frankel

NO LIBERTy
AT LIBERTY BAPTIST COLLEGE
In recent months there has been much controversy
surrounding the granting of tax exempt status to private
schools which have rules and regulations of a racist nature.
At the forefront of the dispute has been Bob Jones
University, a school which absolutely forbids interracial
dating. There is another private college which has a similar
rule, but somehow it managed to escape the eye of the
national news media during the height of the issue.
On October 10, 1981, some months prior to the tax
exemption brouhaha, an interesting article appeared in the
Peoria, Illinois-based Prairie Sun. The story told of a young
man going to a private college who was refused permission
to date a woman by his dean because he and the women
were not of the same race. The school in question is Liberty
Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia. The head of Liberty
Baptist is none other than our old buddy, Jerry Falwell.
How this story managed to slip by the magnates of the
national media I can't imagine. Perhaps Falwell's power, real
or imagined, has reached the point where the moguls of the
media are afraid to cross him. Regardless, the public should
be made aware of the horror that is Liberty Baptist College.
Falwell opened Liberty Baptist College slightly over ten
years ago. The 24-building campus supplies education to
over 3000 unassuming students. Falwell sees his school as a
counterforce to "the dark spiritual condition of the world."
Austin, Texas

Actually, it's a vehicle for turning young people's minds

inside out and filling them with christian propaganda.
When one scrutinizes Liberty Baptist College, one finds
rules for student conduct which makes the school seem
more like a concentration
camp than a college. Not only are
the students fed a steady diet of unscrupulously
slanted
scholastic slop, their personal lives are ruled by school
authorities with an iron fist.
Naturally, students must be christian to be eligible to
attend. (It strikes me as odd that an alleged house of higher
learning requires ignorance as a prerequisite
for enrollment.) Not only that, but the students
must write a
description of their conversion before they can be admitted.
Once they are in, they have an elaborate reprimand system
to deal with, and their right to privacy becomes virtually
non-existent.
A variety of leisure time activities are forbidden - with
students receiving reprimands for partaking in any of them.
Rock music, which Falwell sees as the "devil's anthem," is
prohibited along with country and western music. Students
cannot drink, dance, or go to the movies. Dancing can even
bring a suspension, as can swearing, reading pornography,
or visiting the dorm (including the lobby) of a member of the
opposite sex. (It would be poetic justice if these restrictions
prompted
homosexual
behavior.) Automatic
expulsion

September, 1982

Page 11

It boggles the sane mind that such a place as Liberty

Baptist College can exist in the United States. When you
analyze the situation, it becomes all too clear why it does.
Falwell and his college staff cannot be given all of the blame
for what is going on. The parents who have no more
scruples than to send their children to such a place are
equally as guilty.
I have no doubt in my mind that fundamentalist parents
are one of the main causes of mental illness in this country.
Cases of bible-inspired
child abuse and neurotic and
psychotic behavior induced by a strict religious upbringing
are plentiful in the files of psychologists and psychiatrists
from coast to coast. In my own experiences
I have seen
some sad cases. Quite often facing one of these youthful
religious robots is like looking at 500 milligrams of valium in
the eyes. Personality traits which are natural are minimal.
Religion has severely sublimated the person's true personality.
Impressionable
youth who are indoctrinated
in religion
heavily tend to perceive life through a filter which strains out
all of that which is contrary to what the individual has been
taught. This filter contributes to inflexible thinking and aids

occurs if a student uses drugs, takes part in a demonstration or riot, or indulges in "immoral behavior." (I wonder
what questioning the bible would bring - death by firing
squad, perhaps?)
Dating is even rigidly controlled. Before a student can ask
another student out on a date, permission to do so must be
secured from the dean of the college. If a date is approved, it
must be spent in a designated dating area (Sounds like all of
the ingredients for a fun evening date, eh?). Interracial
dating is "informally" prohibited in the best spirit of white
supremacy with the lame excuse that "parents complain
about it."
Liberty Baptist College students have little chance to
commit any of the aforementioned
"sins." Officials of the
college inspect the students'
rooms daily, and a guard
oversees the single road entrance to the campus. Students
are required to sign out before leaving and must observe
curfews of 10:30 PM on weeknights and 11:30 PM on Friday
and Saturday. Prayer leaders conduct devotions at curfew
times for those returning to campus. Attendance at these
devotions is mandatory, as is twice weekly attendance at
Falwell's Thomas Road baptist church.

"There have beep some complaints in the community about Liberty Baptist College
students attempting to proselytize the unconverted, although ... the youths are best
described bya Lynchburg reporter who refused to be identified: 'They're good kids.
They act subdued and docile because everyone's watching "Jerry's kids" and they're

~epqsel~y.e~s

.
'.'.'

There have been some complaints in the community

about Liberty Baptist College students attempting to proselytize the unconverted, although the students are basically
well-accepted. The youths are best described by a Lynchburg reporter who refused to be identified: "They're good
kids. They act subdued and docile because everyone's
watching 'Jerry's kids' and they're afraid to be themselves."

in the development
of the "fail-safe" which protects the
person from new ideas and concepts that are a threat to his
or her stereotyped
notions. The fail-safe serves as a
protection from conflict because the individual can rationalize that he or she is right and everybody else is wrong
because his or her "faith" says so.
You will find that youth who have been force-fed religion

. /

~7-.-~7

--

. -'- -4,.c,,~

:..
_-L_~ .._._.

E.bIlUr"'#AL

CHllsrl/Ai 01

/ II

()VAL IIxrITIlr;""

II

'--I.
,

t..-

Page 12

September, 1982

The American Atheist

and who develop the fail-safe also develop an irrational mind

which is incapable of logical argument or an impartial search
for truth. In any type of discussion you'll find all these people
can do is mimic the dogma which has been shoved into their
heads. The thinking pattern is totally dichotomous with little
or no basis in-reality. .
The fail-safe is something commonly found in people who
suffer some degree of mental illness. But fail-safes which do
not have a religious foundation are far easier to deal with in
therapy than those of a religious nature. That is the
observation of Dr. Eli S. Chesen, who in his book, Religion
May Be Hazardous to Your Health, states: "It is the sacred
aura around the religious fail-safe that makes any tampering
taboo. Patients fend to overreact to any introspection-or
questioning of their religious beliefs." Thus you have a
psychosis which is extremely hard for even the most skillful
professional to deal with.

change, rigid in the application of slogans (and) absolutistic

in morality." Moral majority spokesman Cal Thomas replied in the same position as a professional wrestling villain
replying to accusations that he used dirty tactics, saying
that "Giamatti's speech was totally false and unfounded."
Schools like Liberty Baptist College, Bob Jones University, and Oral Roberts University and their "master race"
rule which calls for expulsion of students who do not meet
certain physical conditioning requirements are insults to
our nation and the educational system. They place teaching
students what to think as a priority over teaching students
how to think. Yet they have the blessings of far too many at
this point for us to hope they willjust go away. We can only
hope and strive for the day that the mass ignorance which
must exist in order for such atrocities to be perpetrated on
humanity begins the decline which will certainly bring
religion with it. As long as this ignorance exists, places like

~ools
like Liberty Baptist College, Bob Jones University and Oral Roberts
University . . . are insults to our nation and the educational system. They place
teaching students what to think as a priority over teaching students how to think."
It is likely that the majority of the students who attend
Liberty Baptist College came from a strict religious upbringing which has already begun the individual on the road to
psychotic behavior. Throw in four or more years in Falwell's
concentration camp and the results are not pretty to see. Is
it no wonder that the fundamentalist division of the christian
corporation is so strong? They roll off the assembly line like
so many robots, repeating only pre-programmed information.
Liberty Baptist College was accredited last December by
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Falwell
wants to take the school even higher with the eventual goal
of "putting the school on the lev.elof Harvard."
One man who doesn't expect to see that is A. Bartlett
Giamatti, president of Yale University. Giamatti raised a
national controversy last year when, in his written message
to Yale freshmen, he soundly denounced Falwell and the
moral majority as "peddlers of coercion" who are "angry at

Liberty Baptist College will continue to grow like stink- .

weeds, spreading their seeds to the wind.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(I've borrowed heavily from several of these sources, especially
The Irrational in Politics and The Mass Psychology of Fascism)
Brinton, Maurice. The Irrational in Politics. Detroit: Black and
Red, 1975.
Fromm, Erich. Escape from Freedom. New York: Rinehart, 1941.
Green, Justin. Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. San
Francisco: Last Gasp, 1972
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946.
Reich, Wilhelm. The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1970.
Reich, Wilhelm. The Sexual Revolution. London: Vision, 1951.
Reich, Wilhelm. Sex-Pol: Essays, 1929-1934. New York: Random
House, 1966.
.
Roth, Philip. Portnoy's Complaint. New York: Random House,
1969.

TIHIIElUNA Tllt IFIRllNCJEOIF TIHIlE VllIDlEO IRlEV(Q)llUTllON

CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING
by Ed Lowry
They warned us about the "video revolution." They told
us that at some point, in the kind of vast cultural movement
usually associated with the migration before an Ice Age, we
would begin spending our disposable income on video tapes
and recorders. They told us that one day our televisions
would double, quadruple, even multiply by 20 the number of
channels it brought into our homes, turning us into a nation
of video drones, plugged into Big Brother's monotonous
gaze.
Yet only rarely did anyone suggest that so many channels
had to broadcast something; and that, come the revolution
(which has come indeed), there would be not only more
diversity, but a lot more weirdness. For if there is anything
really revolutionary about video, it involves a change in our
Austin, Texas

perceptions and habits as video users.

After a couple of generations dominated by three mirrorimage networks which seemed to care about nothing but
competition based on the exact duplication of one another's
successes, it's not surprising that the public conceived of
the video revolution in terms of quantity instead of quality.
Of course, the civic minded among the planners saw the
video boom as an opportunity to bring more culture to the
masses. Some sharp entrepreneurs with conglomerate
mega-money realized that we would actually pay extra to
see newer movies. And, by governmental whim, some
channels were even preserved for public access, meaning
that anyone who could afford to produce a show could get
on the air and do whatever they wanted. Aficionados of
Austin Community Television, or of the larger and vastly

September, 1982

Page 13

wackier community stations in New York and San Francisco, had some- idea of just how weird TV might get.
At first, most of us found that expanded video simply
meant more TV. Ted Turner's Cable News Network was an
infinite news show, which by the way provided the kind of
off-beat items sorely lacking in network news. (lance saw a
Honolulu city council member wrestle with a woman in the
chambers just to prove a point about spray-can mace.)
ESPN was like nothing so much as an endless Wide World
of Sports (though I found that full-contact karate provided
excellent visual background "noise" for my favorite rock
albums).
So where's the revolution? Well, it's somewhere in the
wacky edges, in the distinctiveness cultivated by each
channel, in accidents born of tentative experimentation and
sheer misunderstanding, in our uses of video as viewers,
and in the increasingly obscure cycles of programs or
networks we follow.
Which brings us to the Christian Broadcasting Network
- a staple of Austin cable television for only a year or so,
but one which has begun to assert itself beyond the
boundaries any sane person might have expected. Following in the wake of Jim Bakker's PTL Club and Pat
Robertson's 700 Club, CBN seemed sure to become a
telethon only the rapture could cancel.
But the christians had something else in mind. They
wanted a real network - one which looked like NBC, but
which would be "suitable" for the whole family (as defined
by certain fundamentalist ministers). So they imitated. They
produced a christian soap opera (Another Life), a christian
Good Morning, America (U.S.a.m.), even a christian news
program. Prime time was still devoted to The 700 Club, but
the slack time at night was filled by old shows from the
1950s, a period which some demented CBN executive
obviously (and wrongly) assumed to be healthier and more
innocent than the "let it all hang out" 1980s.
That means that, except for Robertson and his ilk, the
bulk of CBN programming is not overtly evangelical.
Instead, "the word" creeps in more insidiously, as an
underlying ideology - like patriotism in World War II
movies, like the Communist propaganda Americ~ feared in
the postwar years.
You've got to hand it to CBN for that. They obviously
know something about how TV works. You could see it
coming in The PTL Club, which came more and more to
resemble a daffy imitation of The Tonight Show, complete
with Bakker as an utterly uncharismatic Carson, an Ed
McMahon character named Henry, a line-up of singers who
did pop, rock and country/western arrangements of christian songs, and a list of guests including such born-again
luminaries as Larry Flynt, Charles Colson and Dale Evans:
Bakker finally raised enough capital from contributions to
buy himself (and god's children) a satellite, but he never got
a shot at CBN. That may have less to do with the loss of
prestige he suffered when the press began poking around
his bank books, than with the fact that the centerpiece of
the christian network is commandeered by his evangelical
rival, Pat Robertson, whose 700 Club eschews the glitzy,
variety-show platitudes of PTL in favor of prophecy and
apocalypse. "Is the Soviet Union destined to invade Israel?"
the commercial asks. Robertson claims to have the answer.
Only the die-hards tune into Robertson's show, it's true.
For the rest of us heathens, though, CBN provides what's
Page 14

September, 1982

supposed to be wholesome entertainment, putting the real

message where it belongs - in the commercials. Madison
Avenue long ago accepted the fact that TV programs are
nothing but the bait to expose us to those 60-second
masterworks of manipulation which come between them.
Adapting its message to the medium, CBN can really catch
you unaware when they drop one minute of "Jesus is
Coming" into the middle of My Little Margie.
And many of the commercials are high-impact, wellproduced spots. One ad trying to get us to read the bible
employs only the most spectacular clips from Cecil B.
DeMille's Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments, including the parting of the Red Sea and god
inscribing his commandments for Charlton Heston in a
scene that looks like the climax of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Another commercial treats the crucifixion in brutal closeups suitable to the tastes of the most sadistic sword and
sorcery fans. Oh, there are subtler commercials for christ,
like the one where a guy in a fast red sports car flashes back
to scenes from his dolce vita, only to skid to a dead stop
when the announcer asks ifhe's really happy. Other much
cruder spots advertise collections of gospel "hits" or 12
hour-long cassettes containing the entire bible read aloud
(perfect ifyou're driving across several states in a car with a
tape deck).
What makes these commercials even more mindboggling is that they are interspersed with those staples of
independent TV stations - the hard sell mail order offer. I
guess that means that CBN considers such commercials
wholesome; but may we assume that the products hawked
carry the same approval of the almighty as bible cassettes?
Frankly, I can't imagine a deity who would condone items
like the Ginsu II or the Network Chronograph - a digital
watch "identical" to a Seiko, except that its alarm plays
"The Yellow Rose of Texas"; it costs only a quarter of the
better-known brand, and you get a ladies' watch free. I don't
know for sure, but I suspect the logic may be that, if you're
willing to buy the Apocalypse from Pat Robertson, you'll
probably buy anything.
I'm not really challenging the sincerity of anybody at
CBN. I simply find myself trying to unravel the inscrutable
intelligence which has designed such a network. Even a
program like Another World, which is overtly geared to
forwarding the bitter pill of "god's word" in the candy
coating of a soap opera, proves to be a puzzle. For a
wholesome show, Another World has enough alcoholism,
infidelity, crime, drug abuse, wife abuse and psycho-sexual
torture to fillan hour-long episode of Dallas. I guess it's the
underlying message that makes this low-budget, badly
acted half-hour "family entertainment," but I'llbe damned if
I didn't think I'd recognize moral television when I saw it.
Still, I'm sure I can recognize sickness and perversity, and
both terms apply undeniably to My Little Margie, a show
which ran from 1952 to 1955, and which CBN sees fit to
show twice a night - first at half past midnight and then
again at 3:30 a.m. I know the underlying assumption at the
network must be that the '50s were as clean as a whistle, an
age of purity, when sex and drugs were simply unacceptable
television fare. But, you know what they say about repression: it always returns in one form or another. My Little
Margie is a truly staggering case in point.
You see Margie (played by Gale Storm, whose rapid-fire
facial contortions must surely be induced by some powerful
The American Atheist

stimulants) is a young lady somewhere between the ages of

19 and 39 who lives with her biological daddy (played by
silent movie star Charles Farrell), a grouchy ladies' man and
business exec who's beleaguered by a slave-driving boss.
Daddy tries to keep Margie out of trouble - which basically
means keeping her away from men - while Margie tries to
keep Daddy away from girls. No sex - that's the theme of
the show. But the repressed returns in the almost unbearable erotic tension between father and daughter, whose
sexual jealousy of one another verges on the pornographic.
In each episode, one of them teaches the other a lesson by
means of some cockamamie scheme which usually requires
Margie to dress up like a 10 year-old girl, a foreign maid or a
hillbilly.I generally find it impossible to sit through an entire
episode of this artifact from the 50s without stepping
outside for some fresh air.
Whatever the intentions of the CBN programmers, there
is simply nothing wholesome about My Little Margie. But I
won't argue, since Margie is only one of six vintage
television series which CBN broadcasts in two cycles per
weeknight. The first cycle begins at 11:00 p.m., just after
Another World, with The Burns and Allen Show, followed
by Jack Benny at 11:30, I Married Joan at midnight, then
My Little Margie, Bachelor Father and The Life of Riley. At
2:00 a.m. the whole cycle begins again, but with different
episodes. Even one night of insomnia with CBN provides a
priceless trove of artifacts any TV scholar or student of
American culture would envy. Not only that - it's the best
all night show on cable.
It's curious that CBN's wholesome trash is the treasure of

the show itself. Sometimes he even watches it all on his own

TV.
After George and Gracie comes The Jack Benny Show,
starring probably the only comedian who could follow their
act. I owe CBN for the fact that I now know Benny as the
father of American stand-up comedy, whose stance and
timing have influenced everyone from Johnny Carson to
Rodney Dangerfield to Snagglepuss ...
Once the recognized master of comic timing finishes his
show, it's time for America's self-acclaimed "Queen of
Comedy," Joan Davis. I guess you'd have to say that I
Married Joan is an imitation of I Love Lucy, but once you've
identified the similarities in title and in the situation of a
housewife involved in nutty schemes, the similarities evaporate. Joan is no Lucille Ball. Not only is she tall, awkward
and homely; she wears her blonde hair in a very tight flipand
dresses in some of the most hideous clothes of the '50s ...
The major centers of action are Joan's kitchen, living
room and bedroom. The main issue is the battle of the sexes
in the unfathomable '50s, filtered through an admittedly
daffy woman's point of view. I guess no one in their right
mind would argue for Joan as a proto-feminist. Still, there's
a real sense of sisterhood between Joan and her numerous
female cronies. One favorite episode has Joan playing
perfect housekeeper for 6 months on the promise of a
diamond bracelet. When Brad reneges, she deliberately
trashes the house right before he brings over a prestigious
colleague and his wife. Left alone, Joan explains what's
going on to the other woman, who enthusiastically supports
her tactic.

A mixed fruit salad of open imitation, twisted ideology, crass commercialism and
utter miscalculation
the red-eyed cable addict; but somewhere in this sixprogram gamut, you're bound to find something to love and
something to hate. I personally cannot abide Bachelor
Father's pompous patriarch, his daring daughter and their
oriental slave. Others find the show a rare delight. Similarly,
The Life of Riley is more interesting than watchable. A show
which ran from 1953 to 1958, it's even more primitive than
Margie. Riley (the redoubtable William Bendix) is a marginally sentient being who works at a very dull job in an aircraft
factory. His wife nags him, his children are embarrassed by
him, and his friends make fun of him. Most episodes involve
their keeping information from Riley, whom everybody
knows is too stupid to handle it; and virtually every scene
involves Riley's unmitigated humiliation. It really tells you
something
about the '50s to realize that a show this
depressing was considered funny.
On the other hand, the two classic comedy shows which
begin the CBN cycle are as funny or funnier than any
current series I can think of. In The George Burns and
Gracie Allen Show, George Burns and Gracie sort of play
themselves -:- a married comedy team named Burns and
Allen who have a television show - but not always the one
we're watching. Nonplussed by nothing, Gracie misconstrues and non-sequiturs everybody around her into a
frenzy without ever ruffling a single pleat in her full skirt.
Meanwhile George cracks wise and funny to the (TV?
studio?) audience as though he's observing the proceedings
along with us. He comments on Gracie's schemes, the
acting abilities of the other players and the conventions of
Austin, Texas

Now, picture all this in the tackiest '50s settings imaginable, backed by a chorale which not only sings the ghastly
opening song ("What a girl, what a world, what a life"), but
also supplies the soundtrack for everything from clocks
ticking to sambas as dictated by the script.
I'm not saying you or anybody else can get into I Married
Joan without the effort of watching three or four episodes.
Your first exposure is apt to be quite awesome. Yet in living
rooms, not just in Austin, but across the nation, there is a
growing contingent of people - separated by space, but
linked by some wacky consciousness - who are becoming
almost religious about Joan. There may even be a whole
Joan Davis underground.
I'm not trying to alarm you. I'm simply observing one
loony edge of the video revolution - the capacity to choose
one insanity over another from a staggering multitude of
cultural artifacts. The fact that a cult can arise from the
programming whims of some moral majority network board
of directors is not only a little frightening, but a little
liberating as well. That's why CBN's mixed fruit salad of
open imitation, twisted ideology, crass commercialism and
utter miscalculation makes it one of the most thoroughly
inscrutable, yet utterly watchable networks on cable.
(Reprinted with permission from the Austin Chronicle 6/11/82)

(Editorial Note: American Atheists will have its own

TV network just the moment that the Atheists in this
country understand the need to finance itt)

September, 1982

Page 15.

.-----

---~

Kiss the Children GOODBY!

The REAL MEANING
of NUCLEAR WAR
Any town, U.S.A.
x-

GROUND ZERO
1. 100% of people die instantly.
2. 100 % die shortly.
3. 98% die quickly, 2% _severely
injured.
4.50% die from burns and collapsing buildings.
5.5% die from blast - 45% mildly
to severely injured. Many in shelters will die from radiation.
6. 25% mildly to moderately injured - 75% uninjured but many
will sicken and die later from radiation.
We had better start asking the
question - "WHA T WOULD HAPPEN IF A NUCLEAR BOMB WERE
DROPPED ON YOUR TOWN?"The
tremendous escalation of the nuclear arms race here and in the
USSR practically guarantees that
nuclear war is a catastrophe waiting to happen.

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT WOULD

END IN 60 MINUTES
Most families would be scattered
during lunchtime or rush hour. For
those at work or school or at home,
in your town, death would be terrible and quick.
THE BLAST WOULD CRUSH
BUILDINGS, flattening all but the
skeletons of steel-reinforced ones,
and would cause at the center a
wind of 2000 miles an hour. People would die as they were hurled
by the force or hit by flying glass
Page 16

and other debris.

THOUSANDS OF FIRES WOULD
IGNITE SPONTANEOUSLY within
a 10 mile radius of the blast. A
firestorm would be created, swallowing an area of 250 square
miles from the blast center. If
there were a strong ground wind,
ACONFLAGRATION COULD CONSUME THE SUBURBS, burning as
long as there was fuel in its path as
gasoline depots and gas stations
ignite. trillions of insects feeding
on the newly dead would spread
diseases such as cholera, malaria
and, yes, plague. Whowill dispose
of the literally millions of corpses?
Water supplies and food will be
contaminated. Therewill be lackof
September, 1982

drugs, hospitals, doctors, electricity and sanitation facilities.

THOSE IN SHELTERS IN THE IMPACT AREA would be baked and
those in other areas would come
out into an irradiated world. The
living would most likely envy the
dead.

THERE IS NO POLITICAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE U.S.

AND THE U.S.S.R.
WHICH
WOULD JUSTIFY DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD AND THE
/NCINERA TlON OF THE PEOPLE.
If you say it can never happen or
The- American Atheist

there's nothing you can do about it

- you are wrong on both counts.
We have power we haven't even
begun to use. Remember, it's our
children who will be incinerated
as they sit at their desks. Also,
remember that Administration officials consider casualties of only 20
million a victory of sorts.
Hundreds of thousands of people
are marching in Europe against
the placing of nuclear weapons on
their soil. These protests caused
Reagan and Brezhnev to rush to
the Conference Table, but talks
can be meaningful only if the Administration stops the production
of new and terrible weapons,
which the Soviet Union will, as in
the past. emulate.

WHA T ABOUT THE NUCLEAR

WEAPONS ON OUR SOIL?
The West Europeans can't do our
job for us. There must be a clear
signal from an aroused public
here, determined to call a halt to
the arms race - not the human
race.

Join the Peace Forces in this country in an effort to outlaw all nuclear
weapons. Demand that the President call an Emergency Crisis Session with the heads of nuclear
nations, to meet. and not to adjourn until nuclear weapons have
been frozen at present levels and
plans are made for the dismantling
of all nuclear weapons by all nuclear nations. IF WE ARE EVERTO
MARCH
300
THOUSAND
STRONG, WE NEED YOU WITH
US!

There is no effective civil defense.

The blast, thermal and radiation
effects would kill even those in
shelters and, depending on wind
currents, would reach those who
had been evacuated.

Demand an answer from your elected representatives to the question - "WHAT ARE YOU GOING
TO DO TO PREVENT NUCLEAR
WAR?"

In sum, there can be no winners in

a nuclear war.

FACTS YOU SHOULD KNOW

There is no such thing as "limited
nuclear war". Nuclear war would
result in death, injury and disease
on a scale that has no precedent in
the history of human existence.
Medical "disaster

. lDilA!LdS;.J:~QAl'lHIlEllS1r

planning"

for

nuclear war is meaningless. There

is no possible effective medical
response.

Recovery from nuclear war would

be impossible. The economic, ecological and social fabric on which
human life depends would be destroyed in the U.S., U.S.S.R. and
much of the rest'of the world.

IT IS LOGICAL, THEREFORE,'
TOASK WHY THE SAME DEDICA TlON AND BRAINS USED
TO CREA TE WEAPONS OF
DEATH ARE NOT USED TO
CREA TE WA YS TO LIVE IN
PEACE, FREE FROM THE FEAR
OF NUCLEAR ANNIHILA TlON.

CHAPTERS OF AMERICAN

JD)llAlL~Ifm~",js}JrIHIIEITl'

(512) 458-5731

Tucson. Arizona
(602) 623-3861
Sacramento. California
(916) 989-3170
San Francisco. California. .. . (415) 974-1750
Denver. Colorado. . . . . . . .
. . (303) 692-9395
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
(305) 584-8923
Tampa/St. Petersburg. Fla
(813) 577-7154'
Atlanta. Georgia
(404) 577-7344
Chicago. Illinois
(312) 772-8822
Evansville. Indiana
(812) 425-1949
Lexington. Kentucky
,
(606) 278-8333
Boston. Massachusetts
(617) 969-2682
Detroit. Michigan
(313) 721-6630
St. Louis. Missouri
(314) 771-8894
Northern New Jersey
(201) 777-0766
Albuquerque. New Mexico
(506) 8847630
Schenectady. New York
(518) 346-1479
Charlotte. North Carolina
(704) 568-5346
Oklahoma City. Oklahoma
(405) 677-4141
Portland. Oregon
(503) 287-6461
Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania
(412) 734-0509
Austin, Texas

ATHEISTS

Houston. Texas
Salt Lake City. Utah
Northern Virginia

(713) 664-7678
(801) 3644939
'(703) 3~-5255

IF YOU ARE GAY AND ATHEIST

PLEASE CONTACT:
Gay Atheists Leagueof America
P.O. Box 14142
San Francisco. CA 94114
Membership: $20/year
($10.00/yr for students and senior citizens)
Send to the same address for subscriptions to the
GA LA Review. Subscriptions $1O.OO/yr;$11.50/yr
in Canada and PUAS; elsewhere $1 ~.50/yr.
The GALA will hold its Second Annual National
Convention this year on October 1517~ at the
Americana Hotel. 3301 Southwest Freeway.
Houston. Texas 77027.

September, 1982

Page 17

Toward More Intelligence

Richard Smith

THOSE LITTLE THINGS

I suspect that everyone who lives in urbanized western
civilization has had some contact with that most lovable of
"god's creatures," the cockroach. It's a perfectly little thing.
It doesn't bite people. It doesn't mean to harm anybody. It
just wants to "get along." I don't think anyone believes it has
.even caused any serious harm yet, otherwise there would
be massive plagues in every city. Yet Idon't know of anyone
who isn't disgusted with the little things. If you do not have
cockroaches in your home, imagine what it's like to live in a
home or apartment that has them. You come home from
. work, turn on the lights, and what do you see scurrying
away from the kitchen sink? Cockroaches. You get up from
your supper table to brush your teeth, and what do you see
going behind the mirror? Cockroaches. You get ready to go
to bed, and what do you see jumping - yes, jumping - into
your dresser drawer? You got it. Cockroaches. It really is a
disgusting thought, isn't it?
You know, some people counsel, "You've just got to
learn to live with them. You'll get used to them." It's
incredible. Some of these people actually practice what they
preach, and they actually do live with them and do nothingabout them, even though they'd rather not. You know what
I think about these people. They're uncivilized. One of these
days those. bugs are going to carry some disease from one
place to another, and the people who did nothing about
them are going to get what they deserved.
Other people just move away from them. This solves the
problem for a while, until a friend with a cockroach egg on
his/her clothes visits them and unknowingly deposits it in
their new home, or until the cockroaches just move in from
the houses down the street. Then they're faced with the
same situation that most people have to face, which is,
"What do you do when you can't afford to move away from
them?" That's right. You kill as many as you can, however
you can.
Now, imagine that somebody were indecent enough to
actually deliberately introduce cockroaches into your
home. What would you do? Say you go to city officials and
complain. You are shocked to find out that they are the
ones who are putting the cockroaches in your home;
because you happen to live in a society that thinks
cockroaches are protection against bad luck and this is
really for everybody's benefit. What would you do? You
may never have enough money to move away, and if you
did, you would probably never fully recover financially.
After you've screamed a little - what would you do?
You'd keep killing the cockroaches as fast as you could
by any means short of destruction of your home and of your
environment, and you would try to get people who understood the problem together and work toward a solution. If
anybody called you a fanatic, you'd know that the real
problem was that they were just slobs.
Page 18

September, 1982

Well, that's the same kind of problem we've got with

religion in this country. Religion appears to many people to
be a harmless little thing. It isn't killing anybody in this
country - yet (even though it is killing their minds). A lot of
intellectual slobs even think believing in myths (or lies) can
be a good thing and tell us, "You've just got to learn to live
with it. If you try to do anything about it, you're a fanatic."
People actually believe that giving religion a little help in
government willact as a good luck charm, and so we have
god mottoes on our coins and currency and pressure to put
mandatory prayer back in our public schools - all for good
luck to survive a nuclear war.
The little cockroaches of religiori show up everywhere. If
you want to buy something from a store, you've got to look
at a little sentence that says, "In God We Trust." If you
watch TV, you've got to watch your tax dollars subsidize
religious wars, especially in the Mideast. If you read the
newspaper, you're bound to read a story almost daily about
somebody praising "god" for saving him/her from disaster
while hundreds of others died from the same disaster. Ifyou
write a letter to the editor, he/she willcut your letter to the
point of making it read like nonsense and will make a point
of capitalizing god or christian to give them "proper"
respect, and decapitalize Atheist just to remind you that
Atheism is just an inconsequential phenomenon. If you
write a check you've got to use a dating system that
recognizes jesus christ as lord (A.D. means In The Year of
Our Lord). If you know somebody who lives in a big city in
eastern Missouri, you're continually reminded that religion
is to be respected because that person lives in Saint Louis.
In California it's San (Saint) Luis Obispo, or San (Saint)
Francisco, or Los Angeles (The Angels). If you drive down
the street, you're bound to drive by a city-paid sign that
warns traffic - "Church." No such signs are available for
"Business," even though five times as much traffic willcome
and go from an office buiding or factory five times as often.
Well, I'm fed up with it. I personally can't stop all the jews
from killing the moslems in Palestine or the catholics from
killing the protestants in Ireland, but I can voice my opinion
to the media and support the one organization, American
Atheists, in this land that's aiming at the root of all these
disasters - superstitious god beliefs. I can also fight the
little religious ideas as they appear around me. IfI and those
others of us who are sane don't, there will be even more of
them. We can't move away.
If a dollar bill goes through my hands with "In God We
Trust" on it, I wipe it out. I also "spray" it with a little
"superstitioncide". This means Iwrite or stamp an enlightening quotation against superstitious religion from some
notable as Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Luther Burbank, Mark Twain, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, James Madison, etc. It doesn't take
The American Atheist

much time especially when I'm sitting at home' not doing

anything anyway. You all'have seen these quotations on the
back of these magazine covers or on some of our flyers.
You can use them. too. People do read them. and gain a
little wisdom thereby. (I know that the simplest method
would be for the Supreme Court to rule national god
mottoes unconstitutional; but that court is stalling on that
case now, and they need a sign that these mottoes are
causing division.)
If I'm greeting somebody for a holiday which religious
people happen to have taken over, Ido not succumb to their
victory by joining in it. No. I call Winter Solstice what it isWinter Solstice - not christmas. I call Harvest Day what it
is - Harvest Day - not thanksgiving.
If I'm cashing my check or writing a letter, and it's dated
with the religious system, I note that that system is based on
a myth. I append "YBM (Years oLa Big Myth)" after 1982.
This lets the bank teller or the reader of my letter know that
1982 is unacceptable. When somebody comes along with a
universal nonreligious dating system that I can accept and
that other people understand, I willbe happy to replace the
offensive dating system with the new one. For now,
however, the religious dating system must be opposed.
IfI'm writing to somebody in an eastern Missouri city that
sanctifies a dead tyrant (excuse me - king), I address it to
them as Mr. Louis. It makes a point; it's even a little
humorous; and it still gets there as long as the zip code is
correct. (The post office rules say it must deliver to the zip
code - even if there is no city name.) Similarly, I address
my letters to some California coastal towns as Senor (Mr.)
Francisco and No Angeles. It's quite satisfying, and I
recommend you try it. Until somebody comes up with
better names, I cannot just let that little religious cockroach
slip by. I can't imagine any self-respecting Atheist preferring
religious city names, either. I suggest that those of you who
live in such cities write to the American Atheist Center to
have the city name in your address be changed accordingly
on our computer so that your mail will be clean of that
religious cockroach.
/-t
,

If I am writing to someone, or if I am writing an essay

about religion (and this American Atheist policy), I do not
give religious words respect which they do not deserve by
capitalizing them. This is a subconscious religious ploy that
has worked for ages. Thus, what was once one of many
gods is now trumpeted by the religious folks to be the "God"
- capital G. The burden of proof is on the religious folks to
show that their god is not derived from the other gods
-small g - of history when all the evidence shows this. By
capitalizing their "God" they make a subtle distinction
which, if it is not pointed out, subtly succeeds in fooling the
uninitiated into thinking that there is somehow something
special and different about it.
Austin, Texas

fhe same is true for terms like christian and moslem.

Newspaper editors know this and have always capitalized
such words (even when they were merely adjectives!) to the
detriment of Atheists whom they have always treated with
disrespect by decapitalization. If it were true that christianity, or islam or judaism had equal validity with Atheism on
the basis of Logic, Reason and Evidence, then we should
capitalize both kinds of terms. But they do not, hence
logically we must de capitalize concepts which reject Logic,
Reason, and Evidence, and show respect for, by capitalizing, concepts which endorse Logic, Reason, and Evidence, namely Atheism.
Some people will say, "But the rules of grammar dictate
that all proper nouns be capitalized." There is no a priori
reason for this "rule of grammar." Words like Systems,
War, Life, Geology, etc. used to always be capitalized even
in the middle of sentences (Look at the Declaration of
Independence). In German every noun is capitalized. In
Hebrew nothing is capitalized. There is no universal rule for
capitalization, but there is a principle of why words are
capitalized in the middle of sentences, and that is to
command respect and awe. When words like System, War,
Life, or Geology (or christian) were capitalized, a subtle
"importance" was infused into those concepts that made
them seem bigger than they may perhaps have been. The .
very word "capitalize" suggests its purpose. Editors know
this; you should pay attention to the way most newspapers
treat religious concepts with the way they treat Atheist
concepts.
The only reason that Atheism is not the overwhelming
Weltanschauung of everyone in this country right now is
because, even though it demonstrates its superiority in
Logic, Reason and Evidence to god-worship, it just isn't
"established"
and "respectable." Capitalizing religious
words is one subtle and effective way of reinforcing its
"respectability." No sane person, however, can respect
judaism, or christianity, or islam, or hinduism, and other
such religious ideas. Therefore, they must be decapitalized
in written communication by Atheists. It is curious that the
same people who object when christian is de capitalized do
not say anything when nazi is decapitalized.
This principle applies to the mythical or quasi-mythical
characters as well. Thus, "jesus christ" or "moses" deserve
no more respect or regard than "christian" or "god." Again,
it is not a question of adhering to "rules of grammar," which
are always fluctuating anyway, but of adhering to the
principles behind what makes those rules of grammar
fluctuate.
These are just some of the many pesky little "harmless"
religious cockroaches that I have found everywhere in my
life(my "home"). Ifwe don't do anything to keep them away,
we could be faced with a plague of superstition worse than
now. I have outlined here what I do about them. I am trying
to keep my "home" clean. If you are going to be my
neighbor, I would appreciate it if you would keep yours
clean, too. If there are any other "cockroaches" or easier
methods of getting rid of them that I don't know about, I
would appreciate someone telling me. Some people would
say I'm a fanatic, but the fact is that such people are just'
slobs.
.

September, 1982

Page 19

LIFE
EXTENSION

AND
A primary reason for the popularity of
religion is its promise of immortality.
Many people are receptive to religious
concepts of "life after death" because
the prospect of their own death is utterly terrifying. Since the reality of physical
death is difficult to deny, it can be
comforting to believe that one's "soul"
can somehow survive after death. Even
a slim chance of "spiritual" immortality
is preferable to permanent disappearance from the universe.
Unfortunately, however, there is no
evidence for survival after death. No
instance of alleged "contact" with the
dead has ever been verified, and virtually all such instances have been thoroughly discredited; no trace of any
"spirit" world has ever been uncovered.
The unpleasant truth is that the death of
the body is the final and irrevocable end
of one's existence.

ATHEISM
by Saul Kent

Atheists have swallowed this truth whole. They know they must face death squarely - without illusion or false'
hope. They understand that the terror they feel at the prospect of their own demise must be dealt with rationally.
Ancfthey are fully aware that preservation of life is the highest and most profound of moral values.
The good news is that it is no longer necessary to submit to death passively because there is now solid evidence
that it can be conquered through scientific research. Although the religious notion of spiritual immortality is clearly
untenable, there are thousands of recent scientific studies suggesting that physical immortality is a realistic
possibility for everyone alive today.
This possibility should be welcomed with open arms by Atheists for two reasons: as an opportunity for concrete
action to extend their own lifespans; and as a persuasive counter argument against one of the traditional appeals of
religion.
I first became aware of the possibility of physical immortality through science in 1964. Since then, I've dedicated
my life to the struggle against death and aging (the process by which we die),
During the past 18 years, I've founded organizations, produced conferences, given talks, written articles and
books, and appeared on radio and TV shows - all to further the idea that physical immortality is a realistic
possibility for humanity. During that period, I've seen tremendous advances in biomedical science and technology
to substantially improve the chances of extending our own lives. These advances were documented extensively in
my book, The Life-Extension Revolution (Wm. Morrow & Co. 1980). I've also seen increasing acceptance of the idea
of extending the human lifespan. What was once considered utterly fantastic is now discussed seriously at public
forums throughout the world.
In 1980, I moved to Hollywood, Florida in order to build a strong and vital organization dedicated to the pursuit of.
an extended human lifespan. Since then, I've started a non-profit, tax-exempt Foundation to raise money for life
extension research and a company to distribute life extension products.
We're now offering one of these products - Cognitex-1 - to Atheists throughout the world in an effort to help
the American Atheist organization in Austin, Texas as well as the life extension organization in Hollywood, Florida.
Cognitex-1 is a unique nutrient formula specially designed to help protect against loss of memory associated with
aging. By purchasing Cognitex-1 through American Atheists, you can act to help extend your own life and, at the
same time, provide financial support for the joint cause of Life Extension and Atheism.
Page 20

September, 1982

The American Atheist

Are You Losing Your Memory?

You are if you're over 30. Memory loss is an inevitable part of the aging process. All of us suffer a continuous
age-related decline in our ability to think effectively.
The truth is that aging damages our brain cells. The typical brain cell of a 20-year-old stands straight and tali
like a beautiful tree. Its branches (the dendrites that receive messages from other brain cells) make it a vital
cog in an incredible communications network.
As we grow older, however, our cells become swollen and clogged with debris. The brain cell of a 5O-yearold has already lost many of its dendrites. By the time we reach 80, many of our brain cells are shriveled,
mishapen, and barely functional.
Another reason for the decline in our thinking ability with age is the loss of acetylcholine--a chemical that
transmits messages from one brain cell to another. Many studies have shown that acetylcholine plays an
essential role in cognitive function, and that a decline in brain acetylcholine can lead to mental impairment
Cognitex-1 is a unique nutritional supplement specially designed to
help protect against the loss of memory associated with aging. Each
tablet of Cognitex-1 contains 500 mg. of choline, 166 mg. of pantothenic acid, and 83 mg. of RNAIDNA.
Scientists have shown that oral consumption of choline can lead to an
increase of acetylcholine in the brain. In a recent study of memory function in mice, long-term dietary enrichment with choline prevented the
decline in memory normally caused by aging. Another recent study
suggests that long-term choline enrichment may actually protect against
the age-related loss of dendrites (the branches of the tree) from brain cells. And in clinical trials, high choline
intake has improved memory function in adult humans.
Pantothenic acid is a B-complex vitamin that helps to transform choline into acetylcholine in the brain.
Pantothenic acid has also extended the lifespan of laboratory animals and has been shown to have potent
anti-stress effects in humans. The nucleic acid (RNA/DNA) mixture in Cognitex-1 adds a high-energy
component to the product. Scientists have demonstrated that RNA therapy can improve memory function in
both animals & humans.
Cognitex-1 io_ is a well-balanced combination of three vital nutrients that have been shown to improve
learning, memory, and health in laboratory and clinical studies. It is designed to help protect against the loss
of thinking ability caused by aging, not as a treatment or cure for any of the brain diseases that cause senility.
Cognitex-1coj; is available ONl Y from life Extension Products in bottles containing 75 tablets. The charge for
this product is as follows: one bottle of Cognitex-1 costs $15; 4 bottles cost $50; 8 bottles cost $90; 12 bottles
cost $130.

----------------- ..----------------------~
ORDER FORM

Please Mail to: AMERICAN

ATHEISTS,

(NO REFUNDS)

P.O. Box 2117. Austin, Texas 78768

Yes! I want to order Cognitex-1:

01

o4

bottle - $15

bottles - $50

Enclosed is a total of $

_
AMERICAN

8 bottles - $90

12 bottles - $130

Make cheeks or money orders (U.S. dollars only) payable to:

ATHEISTS

(please add $2.50 for postage & handling; $5 for orders outside the U.S.)
Name

Address

City
VISA/MASTERCARD

Austin, Texas

State
#

Zip
Exp. Date

September, 1982

Phone # (
Signature

Page 21

U.S.PUBLIC'SPROISRAELSENTIMENT
MEDIA WOULD INDICATE. Editorial

NOT AS STRONG AS THE

from the Middle East Perspective June, 1982

"We have long contended that the U.S. media is far more
biased towards Israel than is the general public. Hard
statistical evidence of this comes from a public opinion
survey conducted
by Dr. Robert Lichter of Columbia
University among members of the "national news elite"
-editors
and writers of the main dailies, weeklies and
broadcasting
networks which cover foreign affairs. The
results, written up in Television Coverage of the Middle
East, recently published by the Television and Politics Study
Group at George Washington University, reveal that 72
percent of the press people agreed with the notion that the
U.S. should be committed militarily to Israel, while the
general public's support ofa military obligation to Israel has
never exceeded 34 percent.
This poll reflects only one small facet of the manifest
media bias. In a two-part series last year (October 24 and
31), TV Guide editor John Weisman admitted there was a
blind spot on Middle East reportage by television, but
placed the fault at the door of poor palestinian-arab
public

relations. Admittedly, this is one side of the coin, but far

more important is the enormous zionist strength in every
media field.
One does not have to resort to the exaggerated bromide
thatjews own the newspapers (for which charge the late U.S.
Chief of Staff George Brown was severely attacked). It is
enough to exercise control through ownership of the three
largest networks and two most influential papers, fear of
advertising losses, pressures -of lobbying groups and, the
jewish connection. It has been estimated that 70 percent of
important posts in the media are held by jews, including
writers, editors, directors, news reporters and cornmentators on national television-interview
programs. The entire
entertainment
world, which exercises inordinate influence
as America's "royalty", is similarly dominated.
And the
inflexible built-in prejudice in favor of zionism and Israel
has burgeoned through inter-marriage and the flight from
judaism, the faith."

WE AL WAYS KNEW THERE WAS

SOMETHING WRONG WITH LBJ

During that war he thought he was being visited by the
holy ghost. When he related this to Austrian ambassador,
Ernst Lemberger, the ambassador became concerned that
the news might get around the world and reach the Russians.
"What if this got to the Russians, and they decide he was
crazy, and they are afraid he's unstable and go into a preemptive strike?" he rued.
Yes, what if .. ? Now, what about Ronald Reagan?

From the hinterlands

of Texas comes a new book
chronicling the life of ex-president Lyndon Baines J ohnson.
The Politician, written by Ronald Dugger, tells of some
curious religious beliefs that LBJ had. In 1948 he had this to
say about atomic weapons: "The (atomic) power that ended
the world's greatest war within 48 hours became ours to use,
either to christianize this world or pulverize it." Apparently,
what he had in mind during the Vietnam War was "World,
become christian - or else."

VATICAN

BANK

INVOLVED

In 1929 Benito Mussolini gave the vatican $2 billion,

recognition as a sovereign state, and generous measures for
its tax-exempt status. The vatican bank, officially called The
Institute for Religious Works, was established with this
money. By the late '60s it had controlling or strong interest
in thousands of companies in Italy, thus dominating that
country's economy. It came to acquire extensive holdings in
such companies as Alfa Romeo and it opened the Banque de
Rome Suisse.
Because of growing resentment
in Italy the vatican
transferred its major interests abroad beginning in 1968.
Through the Swiss bank and its tax-exempt status; vatican

1::
S

B
I

...

. .p:'r~~
"M0ses, ....

__
---------The
Page 22

~ptian

control of foreign companies has esca ped notice to this day.

Among the American companies that it bought extensively
into were Chase Manhattan, General Foods, General Electric, Shell, Standard Oil and others. The Sindona scandal in
1974 left the vatican bank associated with the bankruptcies
of several companies and a loss of up to possibly $1 billion
dollars. But still it rolled on. Now it is being investigated by
vatican officials for another $790 million "hole" in the
largest single investment bank in Italy, the Banco Arnbrosiano of Milan. How much monev does the vatican bank
have that it can survive such large losses of money?
(Source: New York Times, July 16, 1982)

riP)

. ....

IN ANOTHER SCANDAL

..-~
~~:~;

---

.
.

fumy is nearly upon us, ,; .

September, 1982

"B~hold!A

miracle!" ,

The American Atheist

by Merrill Holste

THE HANGING TREE

EXECUTION OF PROTESTANTS IN THE NETHERLANDS

Incidents like the one pictured above-were not unheard of

in the Netherlands during the days of the Inquisition. Philip
II, a fanatical catholic, became king of Spain, Netherlands,
and all of the New World holdings of Spain in 1559. It was
said of him that he laughed only once during his whole life,
and that was when he heard the news of the massacre of the
protestant Huguenots on st. Bartholomew's Eve. The
Netherlands had cordially accepted the protestantism of
Martin Luther. King Philip ordered the Inquisition to
proceed with all rigor against the Netherland "heretics". He
commissioned the duke of Alva to go to the Netherlands to
put his order into effect. Alva got from the Inquisition an
edict by which all the people of the Netherlands, with the
exception of a few who were specifically exempted, were
sentenced to death.
This edict was entirely in accord with the command of the
catholic god as recorded by moses in the thirteenth chapter
of deuteronomy. Quoted in part it is this:
"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of
dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder ... saying,
'Let us go after other gods,' thou shalt not hearken to
that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams ... That
prophet or dreamer of dreams shall be put to death ...
If thy brother, or the son of thy mother, or thy son, or
thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend,
which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly saying,
'Let us qoand serve other gods, which thou hast not
known, thou, nor thy fathers;' .
thou shalt not
. Austin, Texas

consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shalt

thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou
shalt kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put
him to death, ,and afterwards the hand of all the
people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he
die: ... If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, ...
certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from
among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of
their city, saying, 'let us go and serve other gods,' ...
Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city
with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and
all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge
of the sword."
At II Kings 15:16 we read that Menahem (king of Israel,
circa 770 BC) put into practice the method moses prescribed with an addition, 'He smote Tiphshah, and all that
were therein ... and all the women with child (pregnant) he
ripped up." That was a refinement added to the law of
moses - rip open the bellies of pregnant women so as to kill
the fetus therein. (Willthe "right-to-lifers" take note that the
"life" of a fetus is not 'so sacred after all as they seem to
think.
In the year 1209, during the catholic crusade against the
Albigensians, at the capture and massacre of the inhabitants of Beziers, the papal legate, Arnold, abbot of Citeaux,
was asked how to distinguish the catholics from the
"heretics". The legate replied, "Kill them all; god willknow
his own." (Standard History of the World, p. 2077-79) All

September, 1982

Page 23

the inhabitants were atrociously massacred and the town

burned with the corpses inside.
During World War II the nazi puppet ruler of Croatia
(now part of Yugoslavia) .and his archbishop,
Stepinac,
were responsible for the systematic massacre of orthodox
Serbs, estimated to be from 500,000 to 750,000 total.

Converted Catholic Magazine, Sept. 1946)

In April of 1952, a lady in Iowa wrote to rev. fr. Edward
Gallagher, resident chaplain at St. Francis Home in Dubuque, Iowa, this question: "If the roman catholic church
existed in a state, as the U.S., would not our government
punish it if it burned one of its members at the stake?" In his

" 'Heretics' could once more be put to death when the church gets complete power
over our government, our schools, our scientists (as Galileo) and our economic
structure."
Fr. Harney, a catholic priest in a news item in the N.Y.
Herald of May 7,1901, stated, "I do not doubt, if they were
strong enough, that the catholic people would hinder, even
by death if necessary, the spread of heretical errors among
the people, and I say rightly so." In an interview later, ...
"Fr. Harney stated that his remarks, as quoted, are correct.
He said they expressed his personal convictions and were in
accord with those of the catholic church."
In The Tablet, a catholic weekly published in Brooklyn,
NY, date of Nov. 5,1938, there is this: "Heresy is an awful
crime ... and those who start a heresy are more guilty than
they who are traitors to the civil government. If the state has
the right to punish treason with death, the principle is the
same that concedes to the spiritual authority the power of
life and death over the arch-traitor
to truth and divine
revelation ... A perfect society has the right to its existence
... and the power of capital punishment is acknowledged
for every perfect society. Now ... the catholic church is a
perfect society, and as such has the right and power to take
means to safeguard its existence." (From photostat in The

lengthy reply, bearing his own signature, fr. Gallagher

wrote: "If one of its members goes wrong it has a right tocut
him off, to excommunicate
him, and if need be burn him at
the stake." (From The Progressive World magazine of
August, 1952)
The early christian church took over the old Israelite law
of moses recorded in the bible. Throughout
the ages,
whenever they had the power, christians have put "heretics" to death. Sometimes unbelief in a minor matter was
enough to bring the sentence of death upon a "heretic". The
death penalty upon unbelief has never been removed from
the law of moses. "Heretics" could once more be put to
death when the church gets complete power over our
government, our schools, our scientists (as Galileo) and our
economic structure.
With $22.1 billion tax-free income
(U.S. News & World Report, May 18, 1981, page 18)
annually, complete control of our economy might not be far
away! We must keep our policy of separation of state and
church!

BIRTH CONTROL OR ABORTION

by Margaret Sanger
(Reprinted from The Birth Control Review - December, 1918)
Family limitation will be practiced. No law has yet been
framed that can prevent it. The church has been powerless
and the champions of wornout moral creeds find themselves trying in vain to force all women to become mothers
against their. wills.
Abundant evidence of the futility of seeking to impose
involuntary motherhood upon women is found in the size of
the families of the rich, of the well-to- do and of the wage
workers of larger earning capacity. The women of these
classes long ago refused to be mere brood animals usually they prefer to be voluntary mothers, determining for
themselves the number of children they shall have and
when they shall have them. F emily limitation for them is an
accomplished fact.
It is also an accomplished fact with many of the wives of
the less highly paid workers. But with the latter, as well as
with some of their more fortunate sisters, family limitation
takes a far more drastic and too often a terribly dangerous
course. The awakened woman of today will not bear
unwanted children. She will not bear more children than she
can care for. And if she is denied the knowledge of the safe,
harmless, scientific methods of Birth Control, she limits her
family by means of abortion.
Page 24

September, 1982

In the very nature of the case, it is impossible to get

accurate figures upon the number of abortions performed
annually in the United States. It is often said, however, that
one in five pregnancies end in abortion. One estimate is that
150,000 occur in the United States each year and that
25,000 women die of the effects of such operations in every
1JNelve months. Dr. William J. Robinson asserts that there
are 1,000,000 abortions every year in this country and adds
that the estimate is conservative.
He quotes justice John
Proctor Clark as saying that there are at least 100,000 in the
same length of time in New York City alone.
Dr. Max Hirsch, a famous authority, quotes an opinion
that there are 2,000,000 abortions in the United States
every year!
"I believe," declares doctor Hirsch, "that I may say
without exaggeration that absolutely spontaneous or unprovoked abortions are extremely rare, that a vast majority - I
should estimate it at 80% - have a criminal origin.
"Our examinations
have informed us that the largest
number of abortions are performed on married women.
This fact brings us to the conclusion that contraceptive
measures among the upper classes and the practice of
abortion among the lower class, are the real means
The American Atheist

employed to regulate the number of offspring."

The question, then, is not whether family limitation
should be practiced. It is being practiced; it has long been
practiced; and it willalways be practiced. The question now
is whether it is to be attained by normal, scientific Birth
Control methods or by the abnormal, often dangerous,
surgical operation.

There is no doubt that women are apt to look upon

abortion as of little consequence and to treat it accordingly.
An abortion is as important a matter as a confinement and
requires as much attention as the birth of a child at its full
term.
"The immediate dangers of abortion," says doctor J.
Clifton Edgar in his book The Practice of Obstetrics, "are

"The question, then, is not whether family limitation should be practiced. It is being
practiced; it has long been practiced; and it will always be practiced. The question
now is whether it is to be attained by normal, scientific Birth Control methods or by
the abnormal, often dangerous, surgical operation."
That is the question which the church, the state, the
moralist, and most of all, the woman herself, must face.
The knowledge of Birth Control methods may for a time
be denied to the woman of the working class, but those who
are responsible for denying it to her, and she herself, should
understand clearly the dangers to which she is exposed by
the dark age laws which force her into the hands of the
abortionist. To understand the more clearly what these
dangers are, and to realize the more fullyhow much better it
would be to avoid them, it is first necessary that women
should know something of the processes of conception, the
prevention of which frees them of all risk of having to resort
to abortion.
In every woman's ovaries there are imbedded millions of
ovules or eggs. They are there in every female at birth and
as the girl grows into womanhood, these ovules or eggs
develop also. At a certain period or age, the ripest ovule
leaves the nest or ovary and comes on down one of the
tubes into the womb and passes out of the body. When this
takes place, it is said that the girl is at the age of puberty, for
the ovule is now ready for fertilization (or conception) by
the male sperm.
About the same time that the ovule is ripening or
developing, the womb is preparing to receive the fertilized
ovum by a reinforced blood supply brought to its lining. To
this lining the ovum will cling and gather its nourishment
after fertilization takes place. If fertilization (conception)
does not take place, the ovum passes on out of the body and
the uterus throws off its surplus blood supply. This is called
the menstrual period and occurs once a month or about
every twenty-eight days.
In the male sexual organs, there are glands (testes) which
secrete a fluid called the semen. In the semen is the lifegiving principle, the sperm.
When intercourse takes place (if no preventive is used)
the semen is deposited in the woman's vagina. The ovule is
not in the vagina, but is in the womb, further up, in safety, or
perhaps in the tube on its way to the womb. As steel is
attracted to the magnet, the sperm of the male starts on its
way to seek the ovum. Several of these sperm cells start,
but only one enters the ovum and is absorbed into it. This
process is called fertilization, conception or impregnation. If
no children are desired, the meeting of the male sperm and
the ovum must be prevented. When scientific means are
used to prevent this meeting, and thereby to limit families,
one is said to practice Birth Control.
But if preventive means are not used and the sperm
meets the ovum and development thus begins, any attempt
at removing it or stopping its further gr0wth is called
abortion.
Austin, Texas

hemorrhage, retention of an adherent placenta, sepsis,

tetanus, perforation of the uterus. They also cause sterility,
anemia, malignant diseases, displacements, neurosis, and
endometritis. "
In plain everyday language, in an abortion there is always
a very serious risk to the health and often to the life of the
patient.
It is only the women of wealth who can afford to give an
abortion proper care and treatment both at the time of the
operation and afterwards. These women often escape any
serious consequences from its occurrence.
The women whose incomes are limited and who must
continue at work before they have recovered from the
effects of an abortion are the great army of sufferers. It is
among such that the deaths due to abortion usually ensue.
It is these, too, who are most often forced to resort to such
operations.
If death does not result, the woman who has undergone
an abortion is not therefore safe. The womb may not return
to its natural size but remain large and heavy, tending to fall
away from its natural position. Abortion often leaves the
uterus in a condition to conceive easily again and unless
prevention is strictly followed another pregnancy willsurely
occur. Frequent abortions tend to cause barrenness and
serious, painful pelvic ailments. These and other conditions
arising from such operations are quite likely to ruin a
woman's general health.
While there are cases where even the law recognizes an
abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I
assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.
I also assert that the responsibility for these abortions
and the illness, misery and deaths that come in their train
lies at the door of a government whose authority has been
stretched beyond the limits of the people's intention and
which, in its puritanical blindness, insists upon suffering
and death from ignorance, rather than life and happiness
from knowledge and prevention.
It needs no assertion of mine to call attention to the grim
fact that the laws prohibiting the imparting of information
concerning the preventing of conception are responsible
for tens of thousands of deaths each year in this country
and an untold amount of sickness and sorrow. The
suffering and the death of these women is squarely upon
the heads of the lawmakers and the puritanical, masculineminded persons, who insist upon retaining the abominable
legal restrictions.
.
Try as theywill they cannot escape the truth, nor hide it
under the cloak of stupid hypocrisy. If the laws against
imparting knowledge of scientific Birth Control. were re-

September, 1982

Page 25

pealed, the 1,000,000 or 2,000,000 women who undergo

abortions in the United States each year would escape the
agony of the surgeon's instruments
and the long trail' of
disease, suffering and death which so often follows.

stands at the head of all nations in the huge number of

abortions.
.
There is the case in a nutshell. Family limitation will
always be practiced as it is now being practiced - either by

"'He who would combat abortion' says doctor Hirsch, 'and at the same time combat
contraceptive measures may be likened to the person who would fight contagious
diseases and forbid disinfection.' "
Birth Control or by abortion. We know that. The one means
health and happiness - a stronger, better race. The other
means disease, suffering, death.
When all is said and done, it is not the advocates of Birth
Control, but the bitter, unthinkable
conditions brought
about by the blindness of church, state and society that puts
up to all three the question:
Birth Control or Abortion - which shall it be?

"He who would combat abortion" says doctor Hirsch,

"and at the same time combat contraceptive measures may
be likened to the person who would fight contagious
diseases and forbid disinfection. For contraceptive
measures are important weapons in the fight against abortion.
"America has a law since 1873 ... which prohibits by
criminal statute the distribution and regulation of contraceptive measures. It follows, therefore ... that America

NUCLEAR WAR
by Marion Batchelder

children deserve a future. I would rather see young people

run the whole show now than the older folks. My generation
is doing a rotten job - besides we aren't wrapped too
tightly.
The following facts and information are from Dr. Helen
Caldicott's book, Nuclear Madness:
"We are racing like lemmings toward mutually
assured destruction.
"As a physician I contend that nuclear technology
threatens like on our planet with extinction and the
nuclear facilities stand to inherit the earth. If present
trends continue, the air we breathe, the food we eat,
and the water we drink will soon be contaminated with
enough radioactive pollutants to pose a potential
health hazard far greater than any plague humanity
has ever experienced.
Unknowingly,
exposed
to
these radioactive poisons some of us may be developing cancer right now.
"How is it that the brilliant efforts of American

I'd like to start with a line from Thornton Wilder's play,

Our Town. It is the last scene and Emily is speaking: "Do
any human beings ever realize life while they live it? ... every
... every minute?"
I am going to talk about life today -your life, my life, our
children's lives and our future generations of life. Do you
realize our past, present and future could be all gone in
seconds? But, as Madalyn says, "We are hard core realists."
We have got to wake up. As an Atheist, I can see only
unilateral disarmament
for a singular world of individual
rights and justice. We must insist on world peace and
adjudicate disputes through international courts of justice if
we are to survive.
I am appealing to Atheists because they are logical and
rational. Our nuclear technology threatens
life on our
planet with extinction. An all-out nuclear war would kill
millions of people and the earth would be poisoned and
rendered uninhabitable for anyone if they did survive.

"Twenty four hours a day, in eight hour shifts, an airplane circles near Phoenix,
Arizona. It carries two senior military men holding keys that must be inserted
simultaneously into a technological device to initiate nuclear war. The future of all life
on earth could be invested in those keys."
.
There is not a safe first strike or last strike for any country
that would use nuclear war. When you see doctors by the
thousands join in complete disarmament groups, you know
the bomb is dangerous.
Our future is vulnerable by error or under emotional
stress. Why does the arms race continue? We must educate
ourselves. The Soviet Union and the U.S.A. both have
enough bombs in their arsenal to destroy everything on
earth at least 20 times over. The Soviets are as frightened as
we are - maybe more, as they lost millions in the 2nd World
War.
It's paradoxical that 80% of all cancers are caused by
environmental
factors. We spend billions on research of
cancer but at the same time spend trillions fundingweaponry. Every city in our country is going to pot...holes, our
education,
bad housing, high medical costs, etc. Our
Page 26

September, 1982

scientists have been put to destructive uses? How did

American culture become so embroiled in the death
cycle? Humanity now believes that it owns the earth.
We have forgotten that we belong to it, and that if we
do not obey the natural laws of life and survival, we will
all cease to exist, and, as Indian chief Seattle said in
1854, 'This we know: The earth does not belong to
man; man belongs to the earth.' Man did not weave
the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he
does to the web, he does to himself."
Since about half of America's research scientists and
engineers are employed by the military and related industries, they suffer from a profound conflict of interest. Many
simply prefer not to ponder the consequences
of their work
too deeply. After all, they have to feed and educate their
children - a strange reaction, considering that as a direct
The American Atheist

result of their research, their children may not live out their
normal life span.
Jacob Bronowski's absorbing series on PBS The Ascent
of Man asserted:
"There are two parts of the human dilemma. One is
the belief that the end justifies the means. That
pushbutton philosophy, that deliberate deafness to
suffering, has become the monster of the war machine. It is said that science will dehumanize people.
'Let's prove it all false.' "
Jonathan Schell's book, Reflections on the Fate of the
Earth, implores:
"Our generations are the first to live with the
awesome knowledge that science has given us the
power to destroy lifeon earth. Our modest role is only
to preserve ourselves. The alternative is to surrender
ourselves to absolute and eternal darkness - a
darkness in which no nation, no society, no ideology,
no civilization will remain in which never again will a
child be born, in which never again willhuman beings
appear on earth, and there willbe no one to remember
that they ever did."
People tend to be relatively shallow and spoiled, always
desiring more of everything, but somehow unable or
reluctant to comprehend the moral degradation of a world
in which millions can be killed by the press of a button, a
world in which two out of every three children are malnourished and starving. A long term sense of responsibility
toward the continuity of life is not evident in America. Life
has become so easy that people lack the resilience to face
reality.
Twenty four hours a day, in eight-hour shifts, an airplane

circles near Phoenix, Arizona. It carries two senior military

men holding keys that must be inserted simultaneously into
a technological device to initiate nuclear war. The future of
all life on earth could be invested in those keys.
There very nearly was a nuclear war on November 9,
1979. A fellow in the Pentagon plugged a war-games tape
into a supposedly failsafe computer and the computer took
it for real. At the 7th minute, the President was notified. Ifin
20 minutes it hadn't stopped, we wouldn't be here right now.
And twice again OnJune 3rd and June 6th, 1980 there were
two more computer errors. This country is a sleeping giant.
Our future is vulnerable, not only to human error, but
also to the frailty of human emotions.
The explosive force in one million 'tons of TNT is called a
megaton. During all of World War II a total of 3 megatons
were detonated. Today, some hydrogen bombs have the
explosive power of 5 to 25 megatons. The detonation of a
single weapon of this nature over any of the world's major
cities would constitute a disaster unprecedented in human
history.
In today's world 1.5 billion people lack access to professional health services. Over 1.4 billion people have no safe
drinking water. More than 500 million people suffer from
malnutrition. But world governments spend twice as much
on armaments as on health care. Every day we move closer
to armageddon (if I may use the word). Many countries are
more than anxious to join the "nuclear club" or the "MAD
(Mutually Assured Destruction) Club".
In 1946, Albert Einstein was apprehensive about humanity's misuse of the atom. When asked about a 3rd World
War, he replied, "I know more about the 4th World War. It
willbe fought with sticks and stones."

THE AMERICAN ATHEIST RADIRELIGION

AND MORALITY
By

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

Good evening. This is Madalyn Murray O'Hair, American

Atheist, back to talk with you again.
One of the campaigns I have under way is to have people
who are Atheists admit this and to announce to the world
that they are Atheists. For, we have much to offer the
American culture. We have a good that should be shared.
We are possibly the best of all her citizens.
Fred S. Elder argued about this from time to time. Fred
was head of the Department of Mathematics at the
University of Oklahoma. Of course, he had a Ph.D. A great
number of Atheists have Ph.D.'s.
He could not even get a book published by a regular
publishing house when he wrote on Atheism. So, he had to
have his book published by what is called the vanity press,
meaning that the authors are so "vain" that they pay for the
publishing of their works themselves.
He felt strongly enough about morals and religion that he
did write a book titled just that: Morals and Religion. When
Austin, Texas

Program 29

he died recently, his good daughter in California saw to it

that I got the remaining copies of his book. She gave me
permission to use anything of his and when I was still in
Maryland I quoted him often in our magazine.
I want to get over to you tonight some of his perceptive
ideas about religion and morals. The book is about 200
pages and you can tell from that that Iwillbe excerptingjust
a few sentences here and there being thematic and trying to
retain his sense of ideas and his logical structure.
This, then, is what Fred S. Elder, the former head of the
Department of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma
thought about religion and morals - for years - without
letting anyone know of it:
"My greatest desire is to help to promote more rational
thinking in a highly irrational, deplorably under-educated
world; to help depopularize some of the most palpable
falsehoods that have dominated men's thoughts for

September, 1982

Page 27

milleniums, and ultimately to help consolidate the forces

of Science and Rationalism against what I conceive to be
the world's greatest illusion. Now I am trying to tell the
world how much well- demonstrated
hokum, self-serving
propaganda and downright falsification it must eliminate
from the religious domain so that man may rightly
understand the world of realities as this is known to the
world of science and ethics.
"A widely prevailing popular opinion holds that morality is an essential element of religion. The main thing that
has made religion so widely accepted among the masses
has been the ignorance of their parents and themselves
of the false bases (of religion), plus their appreciation of
the moralities in their manifold forms. But, moralities are
of purely human origin. Yet, all these moralities have
been impressed upon people in childhood by religious
parents as being commandments
from gods, and so
moralities came naturally to be regarded generally as
fundamental to religion. It is this feeling for supreme
values vital to the welfare of the group and the feeling of
the dedication to these values which seems to me should
be the heart of the idea of religion, or of people
everywhere.
"I am appalled at the persons who give their time gladly
to saving souls from hell, but ignorantly promoting
irrationality and falsehood in a world already too full of
both; wasting endlessly the world's willing human reo
sources which, with proper education at the proper time
(including freedom from false tutelage), could have been
(or could be) enlisted profitably in anyone
of many
essential social activities. According to the definition of
religion, the ideas of good works, honesty, morality,
charity and general good behavior ethically, which so
often have attached themselves or been attached to the
idea of religion, form no essential part of that idea. Awful
crimes, massacres, human sacrifices have taken place in
the name of god and religion and at the direction of her
gods and priests in all ages of man and in all religions of
man.
"I propose that morality is purely naturalistic and
humanistic in its concepts and origins and has nothing to
do with religion at all.
"In contrast with science, the way of religion is and
always has been the way of authority and faith in that
authority. All scientific knowledge is public knowledge,
subject to open demonstration,
challenge, check and
verification by anyone competent to investigate. If there
are gods or higher powers, let them step out into the
open light of day and convince the world by facing test
conditions such as science must face every minute of
every day. Let them make themselves felt, seen, heard'
and be identified for what they may be, quite irulependent of human intermediaries of any sort, and so prove
their existence definitely to all the world.
"In human history, for a child to survive, his mother
had to survive; a larger unit, the family, had to survive;
the clan had to survive. In the human family as in the
insect, fish, bird, and animal world the social instincts
have evolved out of a need for mutual aid, cooperation
for the go@dof the swarm, the pack, the herd, the school,
the tribe, the flock, the bevy. But this has nothing to do
with morality. Where there is most gregariousness,
most
cooperation, least friction, there is the most successful
Page 28

September, 1982

living. Feelings of outrage, resentment,

disgust arose
naturally and expressed themselves. Taboos or disapproval of actions came first. The feelings of sympathy,
patience, understanding,
duty are natural, simple, fundamental, original in man's being man.
"A baby acts without moral implications until it
learns and begins the development of its intellectual
powers. The social instinct is present in everything,
always present and enduring. This social instinct
becomes the guide, strengthened
by habit. The concepts of morals and morality, the ideas of right and
wrong, the sense of duty and obligation are born
naturally into the world. They are not handed down
from the sky nor from Mount Sinai; they did not
originate from religion, they evolved pari passu (a
Latin idiom meaning 'with equal step,' or 'at an equal
rate or pace') with ourselves and apply equally to all;
and the science of ethics rests on this wholly natural
base.
"I have never known of anyone in any way trying to
maintain the idea that religion possesses any earthly
individual or group survival value, for it does not.
Religion is itself a divisive factor in groups and has
been historically. I can give just the brief example of
Indians 60 million 'untouchables'
of whom are religiously condemned and held as social outcasts from
birth to death.
"I think it is never true that a person is good because
he is religious - just the reverse. No one was ever
born religious. Always that is a matter of indoctrination, though all are born filled with social instincts,
born naturally amiable, friendly, kindly, helpful, loving
fairness, justice, honesty, truth and hating brutality
and all the other opposites - in short, born good.
"Unfortunately, individuals so endowed are ordinarily less suspicious, more credulous, conceiving the
world to be more like their own nature. They easily
become religious when so taught, and sincerely so, by
simple acceptance of dogma taught by persons they
trust (their parents), by emotional exploitation
of
youth's innocence, ignorance and inexperience,
by
being uncritical enough to believe that the emotions
they experience
represent
the workings of some
higher power (which they are told is named 'god').
Thus, it happens that they become mis-educated into
an acceptance of the illusions and falsehood which are
religion's stock in trade. Once they surrender to its
dogmas they have s~all capacity to free themselves
from their power. Then they seem willing to rob
themselves,
and all mankind, of all credit for any
native goodness and give that credit to god.
"In reality the only knowledge of goodness the
world ever possessed
originated in the minds and
characters of clear thinking, good mannered, honestminded, justice- loving persons - the noblest memo
bers of their species. Never was there any other
source from which any knowledge of goodness could
originate. Tome it is unquestionable
that if no one had
ever conceived of the supernatural,
of gods, spirits,
devils, there would yet have been born millions of
these kindly, friendly, sympathetic
human beings,
naturally indignant at injustices, oppressions, brutalities, naturally preferring truth to lies, decencies to

The American Atheist

indecencies, sense to nonsense.

"My full belief is that everyone desires and seeks to
get the greatest value possible into (and out of) his
own life.Always, I think, each lives his lifethe best way
his individual, but generally inadequate, mind is able to
judge and decide. And why otherwise? Is not this true
of you and of your friends? Decent behavior is a
matter first of good inheritance, then of good education and training, Life is short, parents generally
ignorant at best, education highly inadequate, experience often abrupt, shocking, irremediable; people are
continually lied to or indirectly deceived about vitally
important things, and so, men judge values poorly,
wrongly, often ruinously, and thus make terrible
mistakes. The problems are of education, sociology,
ethics.
. "But, in summary, I feel that the truth is that
religious faith is utterly unimportant except for its
leading of mankind into wild, false, unbased beliefs,
hopes, speculations. The only hope for the advancement of human knowledge and the material and moral
progress of men depends rather upon the individual
possession of a strong moral sense, including intellectual honesty, and upon faith in the success of intelligent inquiry into things as they appear or are reputed
to be, where verification or close, logical reasoning
from verifiable knowledge is'possible.
"But, truth is suppressed. Suppressions do not
arise out of the supptessors' interests in society's well
being but in some personal, family, group or class
advantage which results from and is maintained by the

suppression. Always supressions betray fear or greed

or lust for place or power or easy money on the
suppressor's part. Always some unfair advantage is to
be acquired or maintained by the suppressor, always
the price paid is continuing ignorance on the part of
the mass mind.
"This is indeed the intent of suppression by religion's promoters. But they at all times have free rein to
promote their falsifications and have an especially
clear radio and television field when one can, at any
moment, hear several religious broadcasts, at any
time - some of these being the most imbecile and
outrageous, poured into the air with no chance for
sanity or reason to voice a reply.
"This situation exists because of the natural reluctance of the better informed to introduce controversy
and recriminations into their own lives and by fears of
press, radio, cinema, publishers and businesses of
reprisals and boycotts directed by the organized
beneficiaries of this promoted superstition and sustained mass ignorance."
.
And this is indeed what kept Fred Elder, the head of the
Department of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma,
quiet for so long too.
I think those days are gone forever. Our voices can be
heard now and especially if you will help us with a
contribution toward this end. Send it to my sponsor, the
Society of Separationists/P.O. Box 2117/ Austin, TX 78768.
We are a non-profit, non-political, educational organization
devoted to the separation of church and state.

Gerald Tholen

FIRST THINGS FIRST

This column concerns everyone in general but women in
particular, because it is a critical analysis of a recent religion
page article in the July 3, 1982 edition of the Detroit News.
Its title was "Bible Enlisted in War on ERA" In view of the
contents of the article I wish to point out that now, more
than ever before, an overall examination of our cultural apd
social practices MUST be made ifwe are ever to legitimately
advocate "freedom for mankind".
The News article included comments by a religionist
named Martin Marty and an ERA advocate named Laura
Callow. In view of the fact that 65%of the overall population
of the U.S. favored passage of the amendment, this article
essentially was an attempt to psychologically evaluate and
analyze the recent failure of the bill to gain constitutional
ratification.
The article was prefaced by the biblical passage ephesians 5:22: "Wives should be submissive to their
husbands as if to the lord, because the husband is head of
his wife just as christ was head of his body, the church."
George Bullard (Detroit News staff writer) opened his
article with an indictment of the ERA opponents. It read:
Austin, Texas

"The so-called proper place for women - and related

beliefs drawn from the bible - were part of the fight against
the Equal Rights Amendment that died this week as a
proposed change in the U.S. Constitution." He continues;
"Scripture, after all, says that 'like a golden ring in a swine's
snout is a beautiful woman with a rebellious disposition,'
said the puckish ERA critics." He then writes that "the good
book also declares it preferable to live in a wilderness than
with a contentious and angry woman." Bullard then acknowledges that "fundamentalist christians suggested that
ERA amounted to rejection of god's plan."
There is, of course, little doubt now that bigotry, in the
religious manner, was greatly responsible for ERA's failure.
We, at American Atheists, have predicted as much from the
onset. However, there are other reasons for the failure of
worthy cause efforts that extend into psychological depths
not understood even by the leaders of such causes. The
primary reason is lack of.educational understanding, by the
masses, of the harm done by people's ability to remain
apathetic and indifferent to genuine pleas for help. Another,
and perhaps even more significant reason, is the continuing

September, 1982

Page 29

insistence of many people that "rational discussions" can be

maintained with emotionally demented fanatics and with
people who insist on humoring and/or listening to their
ravings.

"Religious ERA supporters need psychiatrists - not sympathy. They can tell the
mormons and baptists to "Cramit."They choose instead to appeal to idiots. Catholic
nuns beg for recognition from another idiotic bigot - the pope. They should simply
see through the scam and hold a "robe-burning."
Throughout the article here there is a continuing apologetic theme that "many christians favored passage" of the
bill.There were statements like: "theologians even concluded jesus would be pro-ERA" and "there is no place in the
new testament where jesus treats women without respect
and he certainly does not place them in subordinate roles."
Now, let me point out an example of the underlying
absurdity in the latter quote concerning jesus not placing
women in "subordinate roles." The new testament regards
this mythological character as being in the nomenclature of
something they call the "trinity". In other words - god, the
father, the son and the holy ghost. Doesn't this make jesus
an essential component of a three part existence? ALL
three represent the same "being" - right?! Was it not this
infamous "trio" that purportedly used "mary" as a sex
object for the production of the alleged jesus-god on earth?
Under these circumstances the "son" (being also the father)
impregnated his own mother! Is this socially acceptable? Is
it religiously acceptable? Or do ignorant religionists actually
understand the implications of their own teachings? As I
stated earlier, you cannot hold intelligent conversations
with emotionally disturbed, ignorant people who teach such
garbage even to their own children. Not only does this
incredible story make a laughing stock of biology, it teaches
that it is permissible for "god(s)" to use women as utilitarian
objects.
It should also be noted that the mythological jesus in the
fairy tales known as the "gospels" rarely deigned to even
deal with women except to let them wash his feet with their
hair. Such respect! Not only that, he never considered
women important enough to be entrusted with any authority, since all of the disciples were men! For small minds who
believe in such things these stories have a powerful
symbolic influence. Perfect for little girls and boys!
What most people fail to realize is that the entire original
concept of marriage (so far as religion is concerned) and the
"role" of adult women in our culture has been deeply
ingrained in our society as vehicles to make "man's"
existence more pleasurable. What greatet example of
subjugation is needed - genesis 2: 20-23 says it loudly and
clearly! Mr. Marty and Ms. Callow just haven't been
listening.
It is therefore easy to understand that public recognition
and possible acceptance of the ultra-conservative fascist
attitude of simple-minded "born-againers" and "moral majoritarians" is the reason women remain in their self accepted
subordinate positions. Religion intends to see that women
stay "in their proper place". Macho-mental-midgets cannot
seem to face the reality of a competitive environment where
women are entitled to equal treatment.
Page 30

September, 1982

Unfortunately, women are as much to blame for their

own circumstances. Many are too worried about "personal
security" to risk being independent in nature. Some are too
willing to trade rights for a price. When seeking "equality"
one does not beg - one seizes! If your equality can be
"given" to you by another, the "giver" is implied to be
superior simply by the fact that he/she is in a position to oive
something to someone who is without. Religious ERA
supporters need psychiatrists - not sympathy. They can
tell the mormons and baptists to "Cram it." They choose
instead to appeal to idiots. Catholic nuns beg for recognition from another idiotic bigot - the pope. They should
simply see through the scam and hold a "robe-burning."
How many times must society be told that religion IS the
problem. There will never be equality so long as women
allow themselves to be the "play-pretties" of a sick religious
philosophy that was originally designed to allow the male to
be the closest facsimile of a "god" that men themselves
invented. What a disgusting level of intelligence this represents.
Insanity cannot be rationalized or understood. It can only
be treated and contained. So long as people allow themselves to be a part of - or try to appeal to - such insanity,
they themselves are as much in need of treatment as those
with whom they associate themselves. The sickness will
continue as long as we elect bigots to positions of political
power and then expect them to administer rational justice
equally to all citizens. A "born-again" fanatic in the White
House is as dangerous as a lunatic attempting neurosurgery. The only hope this country has for maintaining any
essence of true Constitutionality is the election of administrative people who do not fear the "punishments" of
mythological gods or devils and who understand that
enjoyable lives and equal opportunities are all that any
person can ever hope to possess. Do not allow people who
don't understand the problems of society to be those we
choose to solve those problems.
Bullard, Marty, and Callow need to first know what and
who they are dealing with before they attempt to explain
situations to people who know even less. Item one of
importance is - RELIGIOSITY HAS TO GO! Then we can
talk about the rights of people.

The American Atheist

~_ GILI'S3 BOUSTOI
~

" NATIONAL CONVENTION - OCT. 15-17

"\.

4<.

The Gav Atheist League of America will hold Its Second Annual National
Convention this year on October 15-17, at the Americana Hotel, 3301
Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77027.
The convention will begin Friday evening, October 15, with a welcoming
cocktail party and registration, and later In the evening an address by Steve
Schafersman, a biological scientist, on the subject of homosexuality and
genetics.
Saturday willbe spent In business meetings with the Executive Committee of
GALA presiding over the gathering of an estimated 100 to 150 delegates
from across the nation. National elections will be held for re-election of
National President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer.
Saturday evening, Gay Atheists and their friends will attend the annual
banquet dinner with the highlight of the convention being the guest speaker,
Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Halr, American Atheist founder and leader
Sunday's closing business willbe held over a leisurely Sunday brunch.
Americana Hotel Is offering a bargain rate of $30.00 per day for single or
double occupancy. You are urged to make reservations well In advance.
For further Information write direct to GALA/Houston, 3317 Montrose,
Suite 1193, Houston TX 77006.

Austin, Texas

September, 1982

Page 31

THINKING IS GOOD FOR THE MIND

~P@EMS.l.

TO ALL THOSE WHO DO IT

(THINK)

WILL THE REAL LIAR PLEASE STAND UP

A frightened girl
Unwed and with child?
Old Hebrew laws
Tradition defiled?

WOMAN
Why would any god
Deliberately create
An apple-eating person
to be Adam's mate?

OR
New Testament stories
Just pure fabrication?
Matthew and Luke and
On through Revelation?

Why provide temptation

More than she could stand
Then coyly wait around
to slap her sinful hand?

PEERS

Was he getting even

. For an earlier rebuff
Did some goddess laugh
To see him strut his stuff?

I am not an island
I do need help
Life crowds my need to be free
I do have faith, I do believe
Not in a god ... just others like me.

FOR NEED OF A COUCH

There are times when I ani inclined to think
that Paul could have used the help of a shrink.

HEAVENLY ENDING
Immaturity demands
An ever happy ending
Creating gods
Who promise eternal playtime.

OF COURSE
When, in the course of human reason
One ponders the course of events
The pondering leads, as a matter of course,
To denying a god which, of course, one resents.

ATHEIST RAIN
Softly it falls on early spring flowers
Crocus and tulip respond to its touch
Earth that lay dormant now flexes and stirs
Urging young seeds to a destiny such
As no divine plan manifests.

DON'T CARE WHAT PAPA DON'T 'LOW

A tiny sperm fused with an egg
Restriction sent it fleeing
Down the drain and Papa said,
"There goes a human being."

Nature pleasures the eye, provisions the need

No requirement to beg, no extorting to plead.

DOWN THROUGH THE AGES

IN THE SWEET BY 'N' BY
If we reunite in heaven
With loved ones who went ahead
Are we sure of compatibility
Among the varied dead?
I know a woman who'll be in a fix
Her beloved husbands number six.
COULD BE
"May god strike you dead!" the faithful have cried
to many a blasphemous tongue that let loose
Could it possibly be that their leaders have lied
About some alleged power which is really a ruse?
Page 32

September, 1982

At what levels of intelligence

Were gods rejected?
Which minds refused to be chained?
At what eras of evolution
Were there independent thinkers?
When was reason granted to be entertained?
Now and then along man's pathway
Of changing scene and life-style
Amid worship, self-abasement, blood and vow
There must have been an ample dose
Of infidel and pagan thought
How else to account for reason now?
Angeline Bennett
The American Atheist

RfAGANSTfIN'S MONSTER

Q[barlt~ rGrablaugb '"h. ~tPt. 26, 1833 b. Jan. 30, 1891

English radical and Atheist, a freethinker in
the tradition of Voltaire and Thomas Paine"
II